interview and survey

Through our human practice,we held a science festival in Guangdong Experimental High School and had a meet-up session with the other four teams from Sunyatsen University and South China University of Technology. At the science festival,we knew that many students were interested in biology,but they have never heard about iGEM.And during the meet-up, our team introduced the project and listened to other teams’ projects and their problems during the experiment process. Most importantly, our team interviewed several students from South China University of Technology and discussed the difficulties they had during preparation for iGEM competition. It was obvious that experiment teams and software teams should establish a close relationship and that our project will help experiment teams solve some current problems and satisfy their needs.

We need more accurate data,so we did a survey in order to know more about the market requirement and gap.And we found that about 4.1% of the high school students had interests in biology.However, most of them didn’t know what synthetic biology was.So we got the inspiration to create a serious of lessons on synthetic biology and then improve it into a business model.

our business product

From the survey and interview,we made up our mind to design a serious of lessons called Synsketch education system,which may be a combination of education and business.The lessons are divided into three parts:basic teaching,searching engine and autonomous learning.

Basic teaching:for those who have no basic biology knowledge,we design a video lesson.Before the class,we send students some fore exercise about the lesson.While having class,we have video lesson that teaches students to use Synsketch to learn biology knowledge.After class,we leave some homework for the student.

Searching engine:for those who have a little biology knowledge,they can chose to have our video lessons.But we prepare a searching engine for them.Learning engine is the combination of data,searching and questioning.We sent students some data,and they can use our Synsketch website to search for biology learning materials.If they have questions,they can leave a online message.

Autonomous learning:for those who know a lot about biology knowledge,we open the Synsketch usage rights for them.They can operate Synsketch to deepen their understanding on synthetic biology.

business model

Our team has already come up with a viable and understandable business model—a circle among ourselves, biology learners and the sponsors.

Firstly, our team can use the project and some online advertisement to attract investment and use the investment to arrange offline activities to inspire interest of synthetic biology among the public, which is of great educational and scientific significance. We also collaborate with the founder of one-kilogram-box and spend 40% of the investment on the product. So far, we have just delivered 550 boxes to many high schools and universities, helping more students to learn about iGEM and synthetic biology. In the business circle, our team plays a role as the connecting part between customers and sponsors.And we have two main sources of income.In one way,we sell our online lessons to earn money.In the other way,we help the education institutions in China to advertise.

Secondly, the sponsors will also benefit in the business model for they can attract more customers on the online advertisements and get their potential customers during the offline activities. Since a big proportion of the users of Synsketch are students who may have the plan to study abroad, most of the sponsors are education agencies and they can get their customers from those who often view the website. And they can also get more potential customers during some lectures and other public activities for biology learners.

Thirdly, the public will also take full advantage in the circle. They can get access to a more convenient standardized software for genetic circuits and can also learn more about synthetic biology through offline activities.

As mentioned above, there is a virtuous circle with lots of benefits for every part of the circle. And since every part can benefit from the business model, it will carry on and expand to a larger and larger range and pose more and more important influence to the whole iGEM community and even the whole society.