Overview
One of our primary goals in human practice was to spread awareness on the banana crisis; however, we realize that most forms of modern communication are biased toward English-speaking and tech-savvy communities. We also observed that information about biotechnology and synthetic biology may be hard to digest without a prior STEM background.
To address these concerns in inclusivity, we created an infographics translation project to better communicate with non-english speaking communities, conducted on-street surveying for older generation individuals that might not be as in touch with technology, and created a podcast with easily digestible content for anyone who is interested in learning about biotechnology.
Infographic Translation Project
Language acts as an important medium in expressing our ideas to the general public; thus, translation plays a crucial role in mobilizing global attention to solve critical world problems and in raising recognition of synthetic biology as an indispensable tool to better the world. To integrate the value of translation into our efforts to raise awareness of this, our team partnered up with Thailand_RIS, Korea_HS, and UiOslo_Norway to compile a collection of educational infographics from other iGEM teams to be presented on social media and our wiki. By doing so, the non-English speaking communities in which the translation teams are from will be able to understand the different problems iGEM teams are currently trying to solve.
You can find the online exhibition here.
After the translation, our team designed Instagram posts for each team, each with a version of the team’s mother language and English; Each team will be posting in different languages to include each community in reading our infographics, further spreading information. Elaborating on that, in the caption for the posts, we used hashtags using our own mother language, utilizing the algorithm of Instagram to spread the post to people who speak the respective languages.
Through the partnership project, every team assisted the public in understanding the basics of synthetic biology, achieving the ultimate goal of spreading the influence of iGEM to local communities.
On-street survey
During our pursuits of expanding public reach, we realized that our focus was placed too heavily on the younger portion of the public. To understand the middle-aged cohort of the demographic, we performed an on-street survey. Our HP team took to the streets of Da-an Park and Taipei 101, asking pedestrians to fill out our public survey while we simultaneously educated them on the banana crisis. This allowed us to understand more of the older generation’s perspectives, whose unfamiliarity with electronics and online survey methods had previously blocked this demographic from responding to our surveys. In the end, we received survey results from all aspects of society, more accurately reflecting the opinions of the public. Please visit the Human Practices page for more details regarding the survey.
That's Bananas Podcast
Our podcast, That’s Bananas!, aims to engage the public through yet another medium. Our audience consists of those who have an interest in science and would like to learn more. We hope to reach out to those who may not have the chance to learn about synthetic biology or biotechnology and teach them how these new advances have impacted our lives and how they could impact us in the future. Our podcast not only documents our journey and process as an iGEM 2022 team, but it also provides helpful guidelines, tips, and advice for future iGEM teams. In our episodes, we provide an introduction to the iGEM competition, synthetic biology, and biotechnology; diving into conversations involving our personal opinion, real-world data, reliable sources, and personal experiences; we discussed topics related to ethics and morals of synthetic biology, new advancements in the scientific community, and our own struggles and success along the way. The podcast also acts as a means of spreading awareness of our own project, which targets the banana crisis, informing our audience of the severity of the issue and how we plan to tackle it. Please visit the contributions page for more details.