Key Achievements

• Information accessibility of synthetic biology by an unusual encounter in a pub + performance by stand-up comedian
• Communicated with industry to directly influence the way our project was carried out
• Ran workshop to bring synthetic biology to public attention
• Collaboration with iGEM teams
• מסורת של debate / כנס על ביולוגיה סינתטית במסגרת המרכז לבריאות חברה והומניזם.

• School workshop
• Synthetic and Computational Biology Mixer convention (hosted by Innovation Endeavors, and funded by google)
• Synthetic biology lesson curriculum

• Radio
• Social networks (FB, Twitter)- thousands of followers
• Movie
• Developed another website that reached hundreds

• Discussion with bioethics expert
• ייסדנו מפגש שנתי שיתקיים כחלק מפעילות מרכז X לדיון על תחום הביולוגיה סינתטית

• China-Amoy university, article
• France-Aix-Maseille, Questioner
• Israel-Technion, synthetic biology convention

• With experts from the fields of: cancer, synthetic biology, and genetics

• Sciene at the Bar

• Lecture to Young Entrepreneurs Program project, and prestigious entrepreneurship MBA program from Australia – Munich
• Meeting with CEOs of synthetic biology companies
• Crowd funding
• Meeting with VC

• Meeting with Chief Scientist Office (Ministry of Health)
• Univerity president and Deans
• director of Oncology department at Soroka Medical Center

Culture and education

School workshop

Children are the future. Exposing children to science is crucial for creating the next generation of researchers and their supporters. Therefore, we wanted to make sure that our outreach reached not only adults but children and teenagers as well, to get them thinking at an early age about synthetic biology and the challenges and possibilities it offers. (This way of thinking is expressed in our movie).

On the morning of 18th June, members of our iGEM team gave a lecture at Degania school (bilingual school:hebrew-arabic). They taught 5&6 grade class and were amazed at the level of questions and knowledge they demonstrated! They introduced the basic knowledge of Synthetic Biology to the students. Afterwards, they divided the class to 2 groups and played a quiz game (The winning group received a prize). We end the workshop with experiment. Growing bacteria, using the bacteria they naturally have on their hands.

They were curious about the biology world and asked many questions related to our work. Throughout all of our activities we consultant with iGEM BGU alumni polices & practices team. They advices us to use the great "SynBio Activity Kit for Kids" (iGEM BGU 2013(, that includes detailed explanation about the activities plus all materials needed.

Synthetic and Computational Biology Mixer convention

At July 7, we did a presentation at Synthetic and Computational Biology Mixer convention that was held in MITCHAM HATACHANA Tel-Aviv. (Hosted by INNOVATION ENDEAVORS- eric Schmidt( Google’s executive chairman) foundation. We presented our project in front of entrepreneurs, researchers, and students.

Synthetic biology lesson curriculum

We have developed educational resources in Hebrew to teach younger generations about engineering, and biology.

Public outreach

Radio

On the 9.06 we were interviewed by one of the leading radio channels in Israel. We explained about synthetic biology, and presented our project. According to poles there are 330,000 listeners on average.

Social networks (FB, Twitter)

In addition to reaching out to people based locally and across the country, we wanted to communicate with people on a global scale. To achieve this; we utilised Facebook and Twitter to reach fellow iGEM teams, friends, family and indeed anybody who is interested in what we had to say! We posted news articles, updates on our progress, and more. So, did we achieve our goal of gaining a wider audience? The answer is yes! In total, we gained 3,674 followers on Facebook, and 214 followers on Twitter. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the majority of people who liked us on Facebook were based in Israel, but we also had plenty of ‘likes’ from people all across the globe.

Movie

We invested a lot of time and effort to think about the movie motive that will enable us to reach out to as wider audience. For many people, synthetic biology might be horrid, scary, difficult, and complicated. But through movies, we're trying to put a new point of view of synthetic biology, where people will be able to visualize the idea and creates exciting adventure in their mind. In the movie we also explained about the competition and our project.

Conventions

Mini Jamboree, Technion [TBD]

We have been attending various conferences and discussions around synthetic biology. We presented at Synthetic and Computational Biology Mixer convention (hosted by Innovation Endeavors, and funded by google)

Collaboration with other iGEM teams

France-Aix-Maseille, Questioner

Aix-Marseille Université (France), propose a collaboration. They needed to collect a lot of information about chewing-gum and GMOs around the world. Since we love chewing-gum we immediately decided to participate. They prepared a small survey, and we went to the country streets and interviewed random people. It was a fun challenge. We received a gold badge for our help.

China-Amoy university, article

Amoy university issued monthly newsletter. We had the honor to collaborate and publish an article about our project in the fifth issue of 2015 Newsletter.

Israel-Technion, Mini Jamboree

tbd

Social events

Science at the Bar

On September 9 we held a lecture at a bar in Tel Aviv, according to the concept of "science on the bar" which is very trendy in Israel. We told the audience about the project, about our uniqueness and the competition itself. Moreover, there was a performance by stand-up comedian who recovered from cancer. He created a stand-up show about his dealing with the disease and his personal process. He claims that he has been cured thanks to his humor.

Collaboration and panels

Round table

Mentors are one of the most valuable resources an entrepreneur should tap into. The idea of launching a project should no longer be a scary or daunting experience, riddled with unknowns. It should be a collaborative experience accumulating the learnings of the hundreds of local entrepreneurs who have already built successful businesses, and can help you move faster and avoid known pitfalls based on their years of experience.

Therefore, from the very beginning we have engaged the experts who have a deep understanding of Cancer in order to ensure that our project is addressing a genuine need as defined by those who know best. On May we organized roundtable discussion with top researchers from the research fields of cancer diagnostics and therapy, Genetics and biology. We wanted the BEST mentorship and advices from the top experts.
We managed to bring together the following experts:
Prof. Roni Apte, Microbiology, Immunology and Genetics expert [pic]

Prof. Etta Livneh, Immunology and Genetics expert [pic]

Dr. Ayelet David, [pic]

Dr. Levaot Noam, Physiology and Cell Biology expert [pic]

Special meetings

Chief Scientist

We presented the details of our project to other scientists, in order to raise awareness of the field of synthetic biology and incite constructive discussions regarding the scientific specifications of our project. Meeting with Chief Scientist Office (Ministry of Health)- We met with Dr. Ami Ben-Yehuda. Director of the Department of Medical Research. He gave us highlights and insights for research and presentation. The meeting was very fruitful, interesting and ans it helped us for the further research..

Univerity president and Deans

In order to expose our project in the country and the university in particular, and in order to raise funds, we met with the deans of the various faculties. We presented the project and its importance for promoting entrepreneurship, innovation and involvement of students beyond school hours. Deans were happy to see that their faculty and students involved in such a unique project.

director of Oncology department at Soroka Medical Center

Meeting with Prof. Samuel Ariad, the director of Oncology department at Soroka Medical Center. We presented our project and received scientific and clinical advices.