Team:Chalmers-Gothenburg/iGEMCommunity
iGEM community
A fundamental idea in the iGEM society is to increase knowledge within the field of synthetic biology as well as sharing this knowledge with other students and scientists internationally. The participants of iGEM will in the future end up as scientist or in the industry, and hopefully retain the sportsmanship that exist within the iGEM community and spread it even further. By focusing on iGEM community in our Human Practices, we hope to raise awareness of the importance of sharing one's knowledge, both for solidarity reasons as well as making the research more accessible. One example of how we reached out to the iGEM community is our ongoing collaboration with team Czech Republic. We also participated in the Nordic iGEM Conference, and shared thoughts and ideas with other nordic iGEM teams.
Our friends in Team Czech Republic
During the summer we have had contact with team Czech Republic. They are participating for the first time this year and they contacted us because they were interested in our previous project (iGEM 2014 Team Gothenburg). We realized that their project is similar to our detection part so we thought it would be nice if we could help each other during the summer. Our contact has mainly been through e-mail and Skype and we have had collaborations on different parts of our projects. We have helped them out by giving some general tips for the competition like where to find the free parts we get from the competition and by giving them our survey so they received something for their human practices part. In return, they have been helping us with some simulations of the detection system and the modeling people from both teams have been talking to each other during the summer as well. We are very pleased that we got this opportunity to get in contact with another team! It has been really nice and we are all looking forward to meet the Czech Republic team in Boston!
The Nordic iGEM Conference
An important aspect of the iGEM competition is getting to know new people, with whom you can discuss ideas and collaborate as well as make new friends. As a step towards this, the Chalmers-Gothenburg team has participated in the Nordic iGEM Conference, NiC. This was an initiative by the Uppsala and Stockholm iGEM teams who collaborated in the hosting of this event. The conference took place between the 24th and the 26th of July at the Uppsala University, and all ten iGEM teams of the Nordic countries were invited. It was a great weekend with very constructive discussions and also a lot of fun.
On the day of arrival, a welcoming BBQ was arranged in the evening, allowing all the teams to socialise and get to know each other. The evening offered amazing food and a range of fun games, making for a great start for the conference. The next day was when the main event of the NiC took place, namely the presentations of the projects. All the teams had selected one member who would be part of a NiC jury, which in the end would determine which project and presentation would be crowned the winner of the NiC, and be awarded with the highly sought-after Golden Pipette. However, the main focus of the presentations was to be good practice for the upcoming presentations in Boston.
All the teams, including the jury, were then allowed to ask questions on the projects and it was meant to be preparation for the questions which might come after the presentation at the iGEM Giant Jamboree. This part of the NiC was very useful and provided a lot of interesting feedback on our project, while also letting us understand the struggles and successes of the other teams in a very constructive way.
Later the same day, the next part of the NiC was held, which was the different workshops. The workshops reflected on some important parts of the iGEM experience and their purpose was for the teams to be able to compare their respective good and bad ideas about these. The workshop topics included:
1. Awesome solutions for the lab. This workshop aimed to address solutions to technical problems in the lab, and let the teams share their experiences in this area.
2. The future of iGEM technology. This workshop allowed the participants to speculate on current and future technologies which could be used in the iGEM competition.
3. Unsolved ethics: Is your project suitable for supervillains? In this workshop the participants could discuss the ethical impacts of their projects and reflect on additional steps which could be taken to make their ideas more acceptable by the general public.
4. Funding the fun: The road to Boston In this workshop the participants could discuss in which ways they worked to make the journey to Boston possible. Some important questions that were discussed included the amount of money required, the type of sponsorship obtained from companies and how to approach them in the best way.
5. After iGEM: Unexpected applications In this workshop it was discussed how to make the projects available to the community and also if they could have any additional applications other that what the teams had already thought of.
The workshops were divided into two sessions of 1 hour each, and the participants got to sign up for two different workshops which they found they most interesting or had been involved with a lot during the summer. This part of the NiC was very well thought out and provided many interesting ideas on improvements that can be made, both for the teams and on the iGEM management’s side of things.
Following the workshops, the prestigious prize ceremony was held, deciding the winner of the all-time first Nordic iGEM Conference. Our congratulations go to the Stockholm iGEM team who managed to claim the Golden Pipette. After an amazing dinner, it was time for the Bar Crawl. This was a really fun opportunity to get to know everyone even better while at the same time discovering the beauty of the Uppsala University nations. The Bar Crawl was a great ending to an amazing day, which had been full of new experiences and meetings with really nice people.
The last day all of the participants could take it easy and enjoy a sightseeing tour of the town of Uppsala. The NiC ended at midday and it was time to say goodbye to all the people and new friends we had met during the weekend. We want to thank Uppsala and Stockholm for a really great event as well as all of the other teams who attended for being awesome. We hope that this will continue and become an annual event and we look forward to seeing you all in Boston.
NIC Galllery
