Team:Manchester/Engagement
Education and public Engagement
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British Science Week
British Science Week (BSW) we set up a stall aimed at increasing the awareness of different methods in the production of chemicals. We informed school pupils that scented compounds could be produced through conventional farming, synthetic biology (Genetically Modified Organisms) and synthetic chemistry.
Survey
Before we launched our project, we conducted an online survey to find out the global trend of alcohol consumption and to see if our project would create an impact in the society. We received a total of 152 respondents, with the majority of them being students aged between 18-25 (87.4%). 91% of the respondents were from the United Kingdom (UK) and Europe and the remaining come from other parts of the world.
Overall, this survey appears to represent students aged 18-25, living in the UK or in Europe.
Microbiology Society Conference
We attended the Microbiology Society Conference and gave a poster presentation on our preliminary research proposal . We gained positive feedback as well as criticism of our project from academics and previous iGEM teams . We also gave an oral presentation of our project to a room of microbiology society members and answered their questions on our mechanisms.
ESOF Poster Presentation
We attended the EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF) held in Manchester, United Kingdom. This was a chance to share our project with researchers from around the world. We explained our project to various attendees, which gave our team a practice of sharing our project and answering questions before the [UK Meet Up].
Manchester Evening News
We contacted Manchester Evening News contacted us, expressing interest in our project. After meeting with them they wrote several articles on us online and even featured us in the Manchester Evening News paper. We were featured in several photos and an interview with their photographer.
Crowdfunding (Experiment.com)
We took part in a crowdfunding competition conducted by Experiment.com to get funding to attend the Giant Jamboree. This competition allowed us to promote our project globally and gave us the insight into the knowledge of crowd-sourcing. We also made a video (click here for our video!) to better understand our project.
Heart FM
The articles published by Manchester Evening News gained attention from Anna Russell from Heart FM . She contacted us and requested for an interview to be aired on Heart FM. We discussed about our project and the possible applications of AlcoPatch in a real-world context. The interview was aired during their Saturday morning segment on the 30th of July.
UK Meet up
We attended the UK Meet Up in London,United Kingdom, organised by the University of Westminster. There were talks by Meagan Lizarazo from iGEM Headquarters and Dr Smith from KCL (amongst other external speakers). We were given the chance to present our work to other UK iGEM teams as well as attend a poster presentation event.
