"Human Practices is the study of how your work affects the world, and how the world affects your work."
— Peter Carr, Director of Judging
The PP group worked and cooperated with the research team in order to develop, communicate, and create a diverse and creative project. It was important for us to include in our project topics such as ethics, culture, society, and accessibility of information to the general public in an unusual way. The purpose of the PP activities was to answer questions on various subjects that will integrate with the laboratory work. We did our best to invest our time and energy in a real long-lasting contribution.
Key Achievements
Increased accessibility to information about synthetic biology by arranging unique events
Created a dialogue with the industry to adapt our project according to real world needs
Successfully collaborated with iGEM teams
Initiated dialog and long term activity with the health, humanism and society center
Meeting with Chief Scientist Office (Ministry of Health)
University president and deans
director of Oncology department at Soroka Medical Center
Entrepreneurship
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 Venture Capital
Culture and education
School workshop
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 video).
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 ended the workshop with an 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 consulted with iGEM BGU alumni polices & practices team.
They adviced 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
convention (hosted by Innovation Endeavors, and funded by google)
On July 7th, we did a presentation at Synthetic and Computational Biology Mixer convention that was held in Tel-Aviv, which was hosted by Innovation Endeavors- Eric Schmidt's (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 June 9th and september 16th we were interviewed by two of the leading radio channels in Israel.
We explained about synthetic biology, and presented our project.
nAccording to poles there are 330,000 listeners in general.
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 utilized 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.
In total, we gained 3,674 followers on Facebook, and 214 followers on Twitter. 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.
Video
We invested a lot of time and effort to think about a video that will allow us to reach out to as the widest audience possible. For many people, synthetic biology might be scary, difficult, and complicated. Through a video, we might be able to show these people a new point of view of synthetic biology, and allow them to visualize our idea and create an exciting adventure in their mind. In the video we also explained about the iGEM competition and our project.
Conventions
Mini Jamboree, Technion [TBD]
We attended various conferences and discussions about synthetic biology. We presented at the 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 9th 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. In addition, there was a performance by a stand-up comedian who recovered from cancer. He created a stand-up act about him 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 engaged 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 a 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]
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 and interesting, and helped us with our research.
University president and deans
In order to expose our project in the Israel in general and in our university in particular, and in order to raise funds, we met with the deans of various faculties. We presented the project and its importance for promoting entrepreneurship, innovation and involvement of students beyond the curriculum. The deans were happy to see that their faculty and students involved in such a unique project.
Director of Oncology department in Soroka Medical Center
Meeting with Prof. Samuel Ariad, the director of Oncology department in Soroka Medical Center. We presented our project and received scientific and clinical advices.
Integrated Human Practices
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Education and Public Engagement
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