Communication for progress——A collaboration with team iBowu
Throughout this season we were able to collaborate with various other iGEM teams. We aim to establish contact with other iGEMers, learn from them, exchange ideas, as well as host events and activities together. We communicated our passion via our team projects during our meetups, inspiring new approaches to solve societal problems; we worked together on articles, coloring books, and other engaging branches; most importantly, we hoped to enhance each other’s impacts, and aim for a larger influence for synthetic biology when it comes to public education. KEYSTONE significantly appreciates every opportunity we had in collaborating with other iGEM teams and would like to address them as following.
Our collaboration with iBowu has been one that traces through the timeline of the season. In May, we attended a virtual project presentation meetup, where teams presented their project ideas to each other. Suggestions were raised in terms of teams’ projects, and our team was able to receive meaningful feedback on our project in its early stages of development. Based on this project presentation meetup, our team was able to spread awareness on our project and the knowledge of body malodor, while learning about other teams also provided us with countless collaboration and partnership opportunities.
Later on in the season, iBowu and KEYSTONE collaborated in writing articles on synthetic biology and posting them under a shared Wechat official account.
These articles vary in topics ranging from the double helix structure of DNA to simple hands-on synbio experiments that can be completed at home. The articles had a big impact on our public education this season, as they were able to spread awareness of synthetic biology through interesting concepts and contents.
Our team had the idea of creating a Wechat official account since the start of the season but sharing and collaborating under the same account with another team has made our article-writing process much more interesting, not to mention being able to reach to a larger audience.
Aside from our official account articles, iBowu and KEYSTONE also collaborated on creating a synbio-themed coloring book. We explored different aspects of synthetic biology together, referenced different sources as our inspiration, and sketched designs and ideas for the images to be put in our coloring book. This collaborative experience has enriched our public education even more, but also provided us with the interesting and quite unusual opportunity to participate in putting together a coloring book. This experience in creating a coloring book with iBowu has been a great part of KEYSTONE’s public education this year.
Hosting a Synbio Fair during the season has become more or less of a KEYSTONE “tradition”. This year, we were happy to be able to host this exciting, highly educational and engaging event with iBowu and various other iGEM teams.
With the close collaboration of iBowu and our team, our Synbio Fair this year has been able to reach to a larger audience, educating and engaging countless others in synthetic biology.
LINKS meetup ——— a collaboration with SCIE and Links China
Description
During the stage where we were still developing our project, we have attended a meetup with two Shenzhen high-school teams, SCIE and Links China. Every team presented their project, experiments’ design, and dry lab proposal to the rest of the students, which rendered a series of meaningful discussion that enhances three teams’ developments. Similarly, we provided suggestions and thoughts about their project too, hoping to provide some help when forming their projects. The exchange of thoughts allowed all participated teams to consummate projects.
Acquisitions
1.Project improvements
SCIE and Links gave us three major suggestions that improved our projects massively.
a. Re-evluating the feasibility of our experiments’ design
At the starting stage of our project, we had a bunch of complicated and time-consuming designs for our project. After hearing our presentation, the instructors of Links China raised a question on whether we can complete all our planned experiments on time. He raised the concern that under COVID-19 circumstances, we might not be able to complete our project. Their question reminded us to evaluate the feasibility of our plans, and we have made a series of adjustments to decrease the number of experiments planned for us. Turns out, that COVID-19 did largely influence our progression, with our members being quarantined in Beijing by the pandemic. Hence, LINKS China’s suggestion helped us massively at the project forming stage.
b.Finding our project advantages over the current products
Links China also suggested us to find our project’s advantage over the current products on the market. They analyzed the current market trends for us and concluded that syn bio products are not as convenient as easily accessible products, e.g., alcohol swipes. Their question inspired us to look for our advantages over the other markets, and we came up with the following emphasis for advocacy: highlighting our eco-friendliness——demonstrating the long-lasting effectiveness of our products.
These inspirations significantly supported us when we were developing our entrepreneurship, since we have already come up with our advantages during the stage of project development. The collaboration with SCIE and Links made the later developments of our project much smoother.
c.Adjusting our public education schemes for public acceptance
In addition to our project design, our collaborative meetup also informed us the importance of public acceptance and education. Teammates from SCIE brought up the thought that our product, as to be a daily applicable one, might be rejected by the public. Their suggestion reminded us that we should consider our public education’s schemes to make our product more accepted by the public. In order to respond to our targeted audience, we have hosted syn bio fair and classes for primary students to advocate synthetic biology and cease the public’s rejection.
2.Getting to know our partner: LINKS China
We have gotten an opportunity to know our later partner, Links China. Link China’s product is a sunscreen that block out ultraviolet rays, urging to form a more effective protection than the current sunscreens. We realized the similarity between our projects, that both are producing daily used cosmetic products. Such resemblance created space for Keystone and Links to cooperate on human practice, hardware, and experiments, which inspired our later partnership with them.
Conclusion
All teams involved in these experiences were benefited via cross-team cooperation. The share of ideas, resources, and inspirations played an essential role when forming our project and public education. We sincerely hold gratitude toward iBowu, SCIE, Links China, and all the teams that have worked with us in the iGEM journey!
