We wanted to achieve a complete project. We collaborated with other teams to involve different opinions, visions and contacts into the project. This helped us find effective ways on expanding our work, while also solving doubts and needs between us and the other teams. Be sure to also check our education page!
* This number does not include people reached by TV.
Not only did we carry out diffusion activities but we also looked forward to teaching the wanders of science in our community. We also showed the importance of synthetic biology and generated dialog with our community. Check our education page for more details.
Being part of the science community makes us responsible of promoting it. Synthetic biology is an emergent topic to which many people are not related. Yet, it's a tool that brings up the possibility of solving many different problems.
The lack of divulgation on these technologies creates common misconceptions on its uses. It’s our job to make sure these misunderstandings don’t further evolve and to clarify the myths that exist around it. We want to break this pattern by sharing what our project is about and the benefits that come within synthetic biology. We aim to end the fear of it and show how it is already present in our daily life in many ways, mainly discussing the multiple possibilities and benefits that it represents on our quality of life.
Impact: 1,187 people
Beautiful patterns is a program created by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Technological Institute and Superior Studies of Monterrey (ITESM). The event promotes women's independence, cuts the taboos of STEM careers and has trained over 3,500 hispanic women in software. During a week of immersive workshops, MIT and ITESM female engineer students become instructors.
Many conferences about women in STEM areas and beginners coding courses are given. Women share details about their background stories and the challenges they've overcome. The point is to inspire girls ranging from middle school to high school to study a STEM area without the fear of failing.
The 2022 summer edition had more than 900 participants coming from 17 countries. The event had 11 face to face venues and 18 online groups (in english and spanish). Almost 400 instructors took part from several Universities. Luckily we had the opportunity to be a part of them.
We participated by giving 2 zoom conferences. Our purpose was to talk about biotechnology, synthetic biology and iGEM. We invited them to be a part of the STEM community and showed them that they are capable of doing anything they put their minds into. We are glad to see that the girls at the meetings showed curiosity by repeatedly inquiring. We saw great interest in many girls of becoming part of an iGEM team in the future, even some of them asking us for advice on how to achieve this goal. The best advice we could give is to do everything with tons of passion and the rest will naturally flow.
As a bonus, we displayed our conference at ITESM campus Mexico.
Science clubs is an international week-long intensive workshop. It serves the purpose of "expanding access to high quality STEM education and collaborative networks". The event takes place in 7 countries, with Mexico being present since its beginnings in 2016. We can proudly say that Chihuahua, our home city, has been a part of it since 2017, having an impact on hundreds of students.
During the program, instructors from 13 prestigious institutions participate. This represents a great opportunity for students to improve their skills and start their path through different STEM areas.
We were present in the event to awaken the interest in experimentation and science. We showed the potential that synthetic biology has, and planted the desire to be a part of iGEM. We proceeded to talk of the process of creating the team, developing our idea and escalating it. We also mentioned the benefits and impact that Agrocapsi has, additionally showing how it involves both science and entrepreneurship.
This event displayed what undergrad students do in different engineering areas. It portrays projects from each speciality career and their respective achievements.
We participated by talking about iGEM and our project idea. The attendees went through our station to find out more about it. We had the opportunity to introduce people to synthetic biology and show the applications it has. We described how it is possible to create biofactories that produce metabolites of interest. Then we portrayed our project idea for this year's competition and how we planned on going through with it. We also shared the impact that Agrocapsi represents and how this benefits agriculture.
We are certain that women are capable of doing everything. But, there's still a long path to full gender equality and acknowledgement in the scientific field. Our team fights for equal respect and opportunities in the science community. That's why we promote events that portray scientific progress from a feminine perspective.
The Women LeadING event has the goal of showing the path that females in STEM areas have crossed. It consisted of a week-long event where women from our university had the spotlight to share their experiences in STEM.
We were given a space to show the history that female iGEM team members have built. We proved that women work as hard as men do and deserve the appropriate recognition for it. Also, we displayed how through time there has actually been an improvement in this topic and a brighter future awaits. The audience was curious about what our next goal is and received many congratulations for getting this far.
Impact: 19,756 people
Based on the field implied by our project, its importance remains strong, fulfilling a problematic on agriculture. This activity represents one of the main areas of income, arousing significant interest of various groups of media thanks to the impact it has.
We held a press conference sharing what the competition is about and our experience through it. We went on to describe our project idea and the approach we decided on. It was a great opportunity to reach hundreds of thousands of people and introduce them to synthetic biology. We displayed this in the following platforms: click on every icon for more information.
We held a second press conference with the Camargo local news channel "Impacto Noticias". We described our product, the impact it has on agriculture and the technology we use to make it possible. We got the chance to show the benefits that can be achieved by using this technology.
We got to collaborate with CONECTA, our university's divulgation magazine. They reached out to us to cover our participation in Biohack, an internal undergrad competition based on research and theoretical product implementation. An interview was held to talk about our results on the competition. They described how we plan on applying biotechnology and synthetic biology in agriculture.
The local newspaper of the municipality of Delicias interviewed us on who we were and about our project. We were able to spread our project and introduce the applications of synthetic biology. Our interview appeared on the newspaper's website as well as on the printed version.
The team got the opportunity to write an article in the digital magazine Catálisis from Ecuador. Our publication "Redefining biocontrol in agriculture" narrates how the use of agrochemicals represents a risk to the environment and human's health. We focused on chilli crops and described the alternatives that a biofungicide offers.
Impact: 42,242 people
Social media is an extremely useful tool, since a lot of people access it frequently on a daily basis. A single post can rapidly reach thousands or millions of people. Due to its entertaining nature, most of the time publishing highly technical information isn't that attractive for the viewer. Sometimes, the best way to get something across is to go with the ongoing trends. We preyed on this tool and created short, consice and attractive content, material that was designed in a way that it allowed us to reach more audiences in a fast way. Click on each logo to find how many people we reached!
Click on the logos to see the attracted people!
On facebook we shared posts based on significant milestones of the project, such as our "Catalisis" paper and the zoom invitation to our conference “Synthetic biology: A sustainable alternative to fight wilting of chili”. We also shared scientific content from other pages and different sources to get more diffusion.
On instagram we held a dynamic called ‘The Word of the Day’. It consisted of explaining a science concept as easy and short as possible. Additionally, we added a link that described the concept in greater depth for those interested in learning more about it. We also made posts related to our project, synthetic biology, and sharing fun facts.
On tik tok we posted different videos, some of them talking about our project and some of them showing our working dynamics. The point was to make them informative but entertaining.
On youtube we uploaded a video where we talked about Agrocapsi. We described the problematic, its importance and how synthetic biology has a huge impact on it. We wanted to familiarize people with iGEM and the solutions generated within this competition.
We really wanted to have a huge impact that goes beyond our state and country. It's in our goals to include ourselves in international activities that can bring people closer to synthetic biology. When team iGEM Kuleuven invited us to take part on a science podcast, we said accepted without hesitation. A podcast is an easy way to reach thousands of people from different communities, representing a great advantage on the diffusion it allows.
Their idea was to narrate stories where scientists overcome their problems. This was a great opportunity to introduce scientific terms to the general public. With our story, we also wanted to create awareness about the role women play in STEM areas.
We thought this was a great moment to talk about Rosalind Franklin. She was a scientist who took the first photos of DNA and made her own theories on its structure. Yet, she was never acknowledged for her work in the proper way.
This and other scientist stories were uploaded into Spotify, the music streaming platform with most downloads in the United States.
Impact: 1,771 people
As previously established, our plan was to communicate our project through the 3 areas just mentioned. However, as we were developing Agrocapsi, we encountered many instances to spread the word about it. Opportunities arose, and we had to take them even if they weren't part of our initial plan.
As we mentioned before, Mexico lacks scientific and/or STEM involvement. Our city is a clear example of this, since we lack a network to keep us up with new technologies. There are some isolated groups that organize events, but it doesn't go much further. We thought it was time to start creating new connections so our community can enjoy them. The best way to reach a new audience is by creating a Scientific Divulgation Network.
This is why we became co-founders of the CCTC network. Communication of Science and Technology in Chihuahua creates biotechnological, astronomical and scientific content. Our mission is to generate STEM diffusion through activities that people find appealing. We are on the development of a plan that allows us to reach people and surround them with science. In the meanwhile, we held activities about this topic and got a great response from our community. We made a quick class on the extraction of strawberry’s DNA and participated with the Astronomical League. This is only the beginning of a scientific journey full of activities and community's integration.
