GIF Purpose and Mission
The GA4GH Implementation Forum (GIF) drives GA4GH standards implementations within scientific, clinical, and industry domains. The GIF aims to facilitate standards implementation, ensure interoperability across all axes, and promote best practices in such a way that GA4GH solutions can solve real-world problems.
By promoting the Mission pillars of Implementation, Interoperability, and Inclusivity, GIF brings the value and benefits of GA4GH standards to a wider audience. By considering diverse requirements and available resources, GIF aims to lower barriers to entry for implementing GA4GH standards in the spirit of “building networks of knowledge instead of silos of expertise.”
Key Objectives to drive the GIF Mission
The GIF will focus on the following Objectives to ensure the Mission pillars are successful:
Facilitate Collaboration. To make standards work, GIF will help foster a collaborative environment where stakeholders — including Individual Contributors, Driver Projects, Organisational Members, and Strategic Partners — can come together to share knowledge, experiences, and insights related to standards implementation and interoperability.
Accelerate Interoperability. To make standards work together, GIF will help define processes that encourage the community to work towards the seamless integration of standards within and between projects to enhance interoperability and compatibility among diverse systems, processes, domains, use cases, and users.
Promote a Community of Practice. To make standards accessible, GIF will help identify, develop, and advocate for best practices in standards implementation and community cooperation, with a focus on improving inclusivity, efficiency, quality, consistency, and sustainability of implementation practices.
Activities to reach GIF Objectives
The GIF will drive actions to meet the Key Objectives including, but not limited to, the following:
To Facilitate Collaboration, the GIF will host GIF Ask Me Anything (AMA) events: interactive virtual events focusing on showcasing a GA4GH standard and one or more ways that it has been implemented. GIF AMAs will provide a platform for community members to share their experiences implementing standards, including successes and challenges, and how standards have enabled interoperability across different axes. Additionally, current and future implementers will have the opportunity to ask questions and gain insights as they consider adopting these standards in their own unique contexts. The primary goals of GIF AMA events are to facilitate the exchange of practical knowledge, support collaborative learning, and create an inclusive space for networking and shared expertise.
To Accelerate Interoperability, the GIF will support GIF Projects and hackathon events to accelerate real-world implementations of standards. GIF Projects and hackathon events will provide structured environments for GA4GH community members to develop, execute, and demonstrate concrete implementation goals. The goal of GIF Projects and hackathon events is to enable participation across the GA4GH community - including within academic, clinical, and industry domains - in implementation activities.
To Promote a Community of Practice, the GIF will develop GIF Community of Practice resources for standards implementation. A “Community of Practice” is a group of people who “share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better”[1]. GIF will help identify technical, cultural, and practical barriers to implementation, and then collaborate with the GA4GH Technical Alignment Subcommittee (TASC), the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Advisory Group, and Driver Projects to develop guidelines and other resources to lower these barriers and support all GA4GH stakeholders. Key components of the Community of Practice will include, but are not limited to, establishing feedback mechanisms and supporting outreach efforts. The goal of the GIF Community of Practice is to formalise and harmonise practices around standard implementations to make adoption accessible for all.