During our online meetup with the Exeter iGEM team, they gave us suggestions on how we could improve our presentation, and we helped each other in finding our shortcomings. They are working on the topic of synthetic silk-graphene composites, which is a potential candidate to reduce concerns over silk farming and plastic waste. Although our projects didn’t share similar approaches or goals, that gave us the opportunity to provide a completely different and novel perspective by listening to others’ presentations.

  After the meeting, we got feedback and some questions to clarify our presentation, and we also learned from their presentation skills. We changed our original lengthy and tedious slides into a more simplified and concise version.

  In our virtual meeting with iGEM Korea_HS we exchanged information about our projects. We gave comments on each other’s presentations and asked questions about how to improve, including details about how we could integrate into society and how to be innovative in promoting our projects. After the meeting, they asked us to participate in several of their projects and conferences, and we indeed gained a lot of new abilities and knowledge due to these collaboration opportunities.

  Our project and team Copenhagen’s share the same goal of protecting marine resources, but with different approaches. They focused on making biodegradable fishing nets, since nets compose a great amount of marine garbage nowadays. On the other hand, our team tackled the problem of diminishing marine resources by producing EPA supplements that are commonly made from fish and by making fish oil using synthetic biology. During our meeting, both teams shared our presentations and how we tackle the care of marine resources. Not only did we exchange opinions on both our projects, but they also gave us advice on our CVD-free cookbook to focus on Mediterranean diets due to their experience in food science, which we deeply appreciated.

  On 8/22, we joined Taiwan iGEM meet ‘22, a live conference, to exchange our ideas with other Taiwan iGEM teams. The NCKU_Tainan iGEM team hosted this meet-up, and the participants included NCHU_Taichung, iGEM NTHU, NYCU_Formosa, iGEM KCIS Xiugang, iGEM CSMU, iGEM Mingdao, GEMS Taiwan, NYCU_Taipei, and our team. During the conference, all participants gathered to discuss each team’s projects and gave concrete feedback in the hope of improving, including presentation and inspecting and learning from each other’s posters.

  After the conference, we were inspired to examine further our Quantitative Agar Faucet. As a result, we reached out to Dr. Lee to explore potential development opportunities. Besides, this meetup gave us a chance to have deeper communication with teams around Taiwan and led to many of the following collaborations, including the iGEM theme song project with CSMU_Taiwan, iGEM map with NTHU_Taiwan, and the infographic exchange with Gems_Taiwan.

  After the experience in Taiwan iGEM meet '22, we hosted a competition for the teams in Taiwan Comprehensive University System (TCUS), a group of four universities in southern Taiwan, including NCKU_Tainan and NCHU_Taichung, to attend and present projects on our CCU campus to imitate the competitive vibe of the Grand Jamboree. Not only did we want to interchange ideas between different teams, but we also wanted to seek suggestions from experts already working in the bioscience industry.

  Therefore, we partnered with NCKU_Tainan to invite several professors from the academic and the bioscience industry, including Professor I-Son Grace Ng with synthetic biology expertise, Professor Liang-Chun Wang with marine biology expertise, Dr. Lance Chen, the CEO of TWBIO, and Professor Shu-Yuan Yang, a former iGEM judge. They gave keynote speeches on either their research, novel techniques, how synthetic biology has already been applied in the market, and even the experience of judging an iGEM competition. The TCUS competition is an event that values industry-academia cooperation, a future trend that will definitely lead to more innovative ideas and techniques.

  During our IHP interview with dietitian Miranda Chen, she told us that an EPA supplement alone wasn’t sufficient to prevent CVD. From her professional perspective, she suggested that we should also emphasize the importance of having a healthy diet and daily life.

  To promote healthy diets for every citizen on this beautiful planet, we initiated a CVD-Free Cookbook, inviting iGEM teams from around the world to share special recipes from their countries that are good for cardiovascular health. Therefore, our cookbook features cuisines that are exotic but also healthy so that people who intend to care for their vessels can check it out for ideas for daily diets.

  Our CookBook partner teams are: Mingdao iGEM, NYCU_Formosa, NCKU_Tainan, Gems_Taiwan, Korea_HS, Copenhagen, iGEM_CSMU, and CU_Egypt.

  We got acquainted with iGEM_CSMU at Taiwan iGEM Meet '22. After the meet-up, they created an iGEM theme song and invited us to record the song and shoot a music video together. With a catchy melody and lyrics describing the days during the preparation of iGEM, we spread the joy and fun of participating in a synthetic biology competition. Also, iGEM_CSMU has translated the theme song into English, so the international iGEM community can share this song and its delight anywhere at any time.

  NTHU_Tawian created an iGEM map this year to promote the importance of synthetic biology and point out where these experiments are located in the world. They collected characters created by various iGEM groups and put them on a map so that everyone can be immersed in this global village of synthetic biology. CCU_Taiwan, which is located in Minxiong, Chiayi, and our own iconic E. coli character can be found in the southern part of Taiwan!

  This year, CU_Egypt is working on treating Alzheimer’s Disease, and they wrote a book to spread awareness of it. The content of the book is the diary of a patient that has Alzheimer’s Disease, and contains knowledge of the disease. To make more people more aware of Alzheimer's, they asked different iGEM teams to help them translate the book into various languages. Our team helped translate their storybook into Chinese Mandarin for people in Sinophone districts to read and learn about Alzheimer’s disease, and we also obtained a lot of new knowledge during the process.

  Korea_HS launched a project called the “iGEMers’ Badge Project” that gave iGEM teams opportunities to create their design for a badge. We gave them our badges, and Korea_HS shipped the badges back to us in Taiwan. It’s a meaningful project that connects all iGEMers together, creating a global iGEM community and connecting every one of us.

  To emphasize the importance of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which include promotion of human health and conservation of marine resources, and discuss how we can take action to make the world a better place, we participated in a SDG conference held by Korea_HS online. The conference lasted two days and included several meaningful agendas.

  On the first day, every presenter, including five iGEM teams and twelve individual clubs interested in and contributing to achieving SDG goals, presented their projects and demonstrated how they linked with SDGs. On the second day, all the attendees were divided into two groups and wrote a contract that included ways to improve the world by implementing SDG goals.

  During this conference, we not only got to know how people and organizations worldwide are dedicated to improving all the existing problems in the world, but we also got to think a step forward: How can we all link together and make the world better as a whole? This conference was a great benefit that took all of us a step further toward the vision. We hope there will be more and more similar opportunities that bring everyone who has devoted themselves to the same task together: To exchange our ideas, our projects, and most importantly, to share our dream of a brighter future.

  This year, Gems_Taiwan, Korea_HS, Thailand_RIS, and UiOslo_Norway partnered together to create an infographic exchange project. We gathered infographics from different iGEM teams and translated them into Mandarin, Korean, Thai, and Norwegian, to eliminate barriers between countries and allow people who don't speak English to learn about iGEM projects. We participated in this project by giving our team’s infographic, hoping the world can know more about the crisis of cardiovascular disease and how we can provide a solution.

  NCHU_Taichung created a YouTube channel called "Taiwan iGEM", where they will post videos created by several iGEM teams around Taiwan. The contents of the videos are about each of our projects, but in Mandarin, so that the public in Taiwan can understand them easily. Furthermore, short videos like the ones on "Taiwan iGEM" YouTube channel are a trend nowadays so that people can not only obtain knowledge quickly, but also can arouse their attention on synthetic biology in a short time.

  Through collaboration, we gained advice from others and participated in their projects, which is a mutual benefit for all of us. The process of our collaboration with various iGEM teams is a combination of communicating, learning, improving, and most important of all, a fruitful journey that brings the whole iGEM community closer together.