Difference between revisions of "Team:SSTi-SZGD/Public Engagement"

2018 iGEM Southern China Regional Meeting

This year is our honor representing SSTi to participate in the iGEM competition. We are very excited and are eager to meet iGEMers from all around the world. In May this year, we attended the iGEM Southern China Regional Meeting organized by Shenzhen University, which gathered eight teams, over 100 attendees, from South China region to share and discuss each others projects. Although we are still at very early stage of our project, through discussion and brainstorming, we had a better understanding of the synthetic biology and developed great interests. We also came to realize the problems existed in the current project proposition, and were given advice on further improvements, for instance, we could expand our human practice activities to a wider area, hospital, beauty salons, manufacturers, etc. We also had great fun practicing public speech and answering questions at professional levels.

iGEM Eurasian Meetup 2018

At the end of July this year, we participated in Eurasian Meet-up organized by BGIC Global and TU Delft iGEM team. This was the first time for us to present our project in English. When we talked about the preparation of microneedle with hyaluronic acid, we received positive feedback from the audience and professionals, they showed interests to our concept and the proposed products. During the panel discussion, we discussed the content of synthetic biology with other team members and judges on various topics, this whole experience gave us a deeper understanding of the field. The most memorable part was the poster session. Many attendees came to our posters, discussed projects and shared their views with us. We also got to see a lot of well-designed posters, which was a great inspiration for us to modify our posters in the future. human practice activities to a wider area, hospital, beauty salons, manufacturers, etc. We also had great fun practicing public speech and answering questions at professional levels.

The fifth CCiC meeting

At the end of August this year, we attended the Fifth CCiC meeting. Not only once again we got to practice our presentation skills, we also had a chance to give advice to help other iGEM teams, including some of the freshmen. In the same time, through communication and discussion, we were given advice on other methods that can be used to improve the hydrolysis efficiency of hyaluronidase in our project. Also through these communications, we came to establish cooperative relationships with Shenzhen University, Dalian University of Technology and South China University of Technology. The way that we were able to help other teams and form meaningful collaborating relationships made us feel a sense of achievement.

The 1^st Southern China AfteriGEM Reception

At the end of August, SSTi-SZGD and Bluepha co-organized the 1st Southern China AfteriGEM Reception, in Shenzhen, under the leadership of the iGEM Asian Ambassador Rebekah Chen, who was the leader of the 2017 SSTi iGEM team. We took control in the meeting managements, including venue preparation, logistic control, on-site support and photography. We were thrilled to be part of a successful meet-up that gathered over 30 outstanding past iGEMers from Shenzhen and a handful of current iGEM team members. We also got to participate in the round table discussion, where we brainstormed a series of inspiring afteriGEM activities, such as academic development, entrepreneurship opportunity, global cooperation, and so on. What interested us the most was the proposed educational project that aims at promoting biology to Chinese middle school students. Communication with past iGEMers, business leaders and officials from iGEM HQ brought us a deeper understanding of iGEM and its values.

Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition

In order to improve our projects, as well as promoting our project and concept to the general public, and to seek start-up funding opportunities. We participated in a series of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competitions organized by Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Committee. We began our competition journey in June by participating in “Inspiration Cup” competition organized by local government of Shenzhen Longgang district, in August we participated in Shenzhen Nanshan “Entrepreneur Star” competition, and early September the “China Shenzhen Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition”. By participating in these competitions, we received expert advice from different fields in terms of commercialization and application, which helps greatly pushing our project forward!
Above all, our unremitting efforts have been well rewarded. We won the 5th place in the Shenzhen Longgang district “Inspiration Cup” competition, the 7th place in the Shenzhen Nanshan “Entrepreneurship Star” competition and the better result in the China Shenzhen innovation and entrepreneurship competition! The whole process of competing is exciting and memorable!

Social Outreach

In the past year, in order to attraction more attention to the concept and core values of the project, we promoted our project through various social media channels, such as school noticing broad, school online blogs, iGEM team exchange groups, etc. In the same time, in order to keep an account on the development process of the project, we regularly updated articles on Sina weibo, Baidu tieba, the official public account of our department, and through our WeChat accounts and so on. The contents included various iGEM meetings, our experiment progress and the information and feedback we received from enterprises visiting. We also organized small events where the public can get involved and experience the joys of synthetic biology. Altogether, these efforts have brought our team a lot closer, given us a more clear goal to achieve, and more importantly, have become little sparkles scattered in the process of pursuing of the mystery of science!

Public events

Social media