Team:UGent Belgium/HP/Silver
Human Practices: silver
Throughout the dewpal project we undertook several dissemination and communication activities to reach out to all relevant stakeholders in order to maximize its impact. Besides engaging the several stakeholders in order to translate our research into real-life applications, also responsible research and innovation were discussed and promoted. We assessed the different opportunities but also critically analyzed the different risks involved.
Academia
Several activities are being undertaken to inspire the youth to pursue a future in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). To this end we tried to make science, and synthetic biology in particularly, more attractive (notably to young people) and to increase society's appetite for innovation. Furthermore, we discussed our project with several experts in the various fields involved to improve our project and to help us with several aspects. Besides communication of our project and results to peers and the scientific community, we also discussed responsible innovation and research.
Seminars
- Synthetic Biology KUL April 15 2016
- Kick-off event Center of Synthetic Biology Ghent University September 16 2016
- PhD seminars October 17 2016 on the faculty of Bioscience engineering of UGent
Outreach
- UGent Faculty of Bioscience Engineering newsletter
- UGent Student newspaper Schamper
- Facebook page UGent Faculty of Bioscience Engineering
- Twitter page UGent Faculty of Bioscience Engineering
Experts input
- Deepak Mehta (3Dee)
- Kurt Van Houtte (FabLab)
- Prof. Dan Fernandez (CSUMB)
- Ali Oğulcan Dülger (Timelab)
- Winnie Poncelet (ReaGent)
Industry
Our iGEM team is strongly committed to explore effective exploitation of the dewpal project results. We initiated key contacts, by seminars, sponsoring and crowdfunding with angels, VCs in additional to valuable contacts in established environmental industries. As such we reached out to key players in the value chain:
- Specialized media
- Interview with Digital trends
- 3Ders
- Biovox (in press)
- Outreach to industrial companies in both the 3D-printing and biotech field
- Several meetings and discussions with Deepak Mehta (3Dee) on optimizing our shape for sustainability and durability
Society
In our project we wanted to tackle a huge societal problem and demonstrate that innovative and cutting-edge technologies such as synthetic biology and 3D printing provide solutions. In order to reach the general public and to make them familiar with our project and synthetic biology in general, dissemination was done using modern, popular and interactive media:
- Interview with (inter)national popular media: De Knack (BE), De Volkskrant (NL), etc.
- Dewpal is present on social media, e.g. Facebook and Twitter
Environmental & economical impact
Water scarcity is a major problem worldwide. More than 1 billion people suffer from physical water scarcity and a quarter of the human population lack sufficient water due to economical reasons, such as the lack of infrastructure to take water from rivers and aquifers (see following figure).
Additionally, in regions of physical water scarcity the average income per capita is rather low which hinders the development of infrastructures to collect freshwater (for example by filtering seawater) (see following picture).
To improve the situation of those billions of people, it is essential to create a cheap and efficient device to passively collect freshwater. This is exactly what we did with the dewpal project: our shape is printed in cheap but sturdy materials resulting in low production costs, especially in mass production. Additionally, the device can be produced locally, if 3D-printers and filament are available or can be provided, reducing environmental and economic costs.
The benefits of the wide use of our dewpal device are huge. Apart from providing easy and cheap access to clean drinking water, the sustainability and development of crops would also benefit enormously which in turn helps the economical situation in those countries. Also, since consuming polluted water and consequent diseases are a major hindrance in education, having access to sufficient clean drinking water will improve the level of education in those areas. The distribution of a cheap device for freshwater collection is a key step in breaking the vicious circle of poverty where billions of people are currently in.
