We collaborated with Team Heidelberg on a Wiki Study, a meta-analysis of iGEM team Wikis to determine what makes a Wiki successful.
As part of the Wiki Study, we participated in Heidelberg’s Science Slam
We developed a comprehensive Entrepreneurship Learning Resource, sharing our experience with iGEM teams that want to include entrepreneurship in their projects – and presented this resource at the global iGEM meet-up
One of the important parts of the iGEM is the possibility to collaborate and work together with other teams. Collaborations between teams are of great importance as they allow the team members to exchange ideas, experience, and learning resources that are mutually beneficial to both sides of the collaboration.
One of our ideas for this year was to produce a Wiki Study, metaanalysis of the iGEM team wikis to determine what makes a wiki successful. We realized early on that the best and most efficient way to carry out this study would be through the use of web scraping, a skill that none of our team members had previously acquired.
We met the Heidelberg team during the German meetup, in their poster presentation which was attended by one of our team members. In that session they talked about their own use of web scraping so we contacted them and asked for a meeting.
Our first meeting was the 29th of July, when we presented our idea, with a follow-up meeting to discuss details on the 24th of August. In that second meeting Fabian Bradic from the Heidelberg team showed a first analysis of one of the categories of interest for the Wiki Study. We established that Heidelberg would help us with the web scraping and we would do the statistical analysis of the data and its write up, which can be accessed in Wiki Study. Without Heidelberg's expertise the Wiki Study would have been impossible, so we cannot thank them enough. On the other hand, the results of the Wiki Study will be useful for the Heidelberg team, as well as many other teams optimising their Wiki pages.
In addition to the Wiki Study we participated in Heidelberg’s Science Slam, where we got the chance to present our content in a friendly and engaging way. We also got to see the presentations from the teams Imperial, Nottingham, Ashesi Ghana, UNILaussane and Heidelberg themselves. We had not approached science in such a way before, and it made us rethink the way we present our project.
Entrepreneurship has been a key part of our project, and throughout the process we have learned many different methods and techniques that we thought would be interesting to present and future teams. We decided to compile them with tips, and examples from past iGEM teams in a comprehensive resource for applying business methods to iGEM projects.
We will provide teams who work through our resource with a ribbon to prove that they have considered the key aspects of entrepreneurship. In addition, it can help teams decide if their project is a good fit for a start-up, and give them the basic tools to start writing a proposal for sponsors. We also had a great opportunity to give a first webinar mentoring on some of the techniques during the global iGEM meetup this year.
