Team:Chalmers-Gothenburg/Outreach
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Outreach
In order to reach out with our project and to spread the knowledge of synthetic biology, we had an article published in a local newspaper as well as an Italian one and held several project presentations. We also reached out to the society via social media platforms.News Articles
The concept of synthetic biology, and the many possibilities it offers, is commonly unknown to many who are not involved within the area. To share our knowledge of synthetic biology and with a hope to increase interest in the subject, we contacted Göteborgs-Posten, known as GP. GP is the biggest newspaper in Gothenburg with around 1,000,000 daily readers in 2018 (GP, 2018). We asked if they were interested in doing a reportage about iGEM and our project, to which they were positive. One week later the reporter Madeleine Johansson and the photographer Olof Ohlsson visited us in the lab. A news article was published, both in paper format and on the web, two days after their visit. In the article, the concepts of synthetic biology, the iGEM competition as well as our project were explained.
Something unexpected came out of the GP article, as the research institute at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg contacted our supervisors and expressed interest in the project. It is now likely that our research will continue beyond iGEM. We want to thank GP, Madeleine Johansson and Olof Ohlsson for this opportunity.
The news article can be found here.
Having international students in our group is a great benefit. We took advantage of this fact to inform foreign and distant communities about our project. In fact, Marco Giavelli, an Italian journalist of Lunanuova, has written an article about us. This has helped spread details about our project in Turin and the surrounding areas in northern Italy. Marco interview one of our team members, which helped him to highlight the cultural and academic differences between Sweden and Italy.
The news article can be found here.
Presentations
To invite people into the iGEM world and to give them an insight into our project, we presented our project at a lunch seminar, at a lecture in an ethics course as well as for two research departments at Chalmers.
Project Presentation at Chalmers
To increase the interest in iGEM and in synthetic biology at Chalmers, we did a lunch seminar collaboration with the Chalmers Student Chapter of Society for Biological Engineering (SBE) at the university. We reached out to all disciplines with an invite to a presentation about our project. We want to thank SBE Student Chapter Chalmers for this collaboration opportunity.
Project Presentation for Ethics in Biotechnology Course, Chalmers University
In October, two members of our team presented our project during a lecture in the Biotechnology Master's course: Ethics in Biotechnology at Chalmers University of Technology. The aim was to let the students reflect on the ethical aspects of our project during the afternoon and then present what they had discussed with the rest of the class. It was a great asset for us to get feedback from the class. In this way, we could understand if we had overlooked some important aspects, as well as gather new ideas and perspectives.
Project Presentation at Department of Mathematical Sciences
To further reach out with our project, we presented it for a Systems Biology Research Group at the Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Gothenburg. The researchers from the group gave us valuable feedback on our presentation. We are very grateful that they took their time to listen to us and that they shared their expertize.
Project Presentation at Systems and Synthetic Biology
Three of our team members presented our project for researchers at the Systems and Synthetic Biology Department of Chalmers. This enabled our team to be confronted with critical comments and feedback about our project while also spreading awareness of iGEM within the department.
Social Media
To reach out to an even bigger audience, we have put a strong emphasis on growing our social media presence. Most of our travels, events, and achievements were documented on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Through these platforms, we have reached and inspired +1000 people. With this social media presence, we hope to spread interest in iGEM and synthetic biology amongst young students and the general public.