Preparing for iGEM 2006

Revision as of 21:20, 14 March 2006 by Ahessel (Talk | contribs)

For Team Leaders

Announce: Announce your participation in iGEM early and widely with your peers. You are on the leading edge of an exciting event that is rapidly growing and gaining global recognition.

Promote: Use the platforms available to you to promote iGEM on your campus, to seed student awareness and interest.

Advertisement and Recruitment: Begin recruitment well before the spring term ends. Advertise widely. You are likely to get a surprising number of applications. Assembling a diverse team will bring new perspectives to the task of engineering biological systems.

Media The media is very interested in projects like iGEM that involve teams of young people and new, exciting technologies. iGEM is receiving more attention each year and former projects are even appearing in peer reviewed articles in top journals. Media exposure will help teams take their work seriously, increase sponsorship, attract new talent, and more. You should consult with your institution's media office about contacting campus papers, local newspapers, and television.

Teacher's Conference: Select a representative to attend the iGEM teachers conference in May. This is an important choice: this person will disseminate the information from the conference and is expected to act as a front line resource person for the team. Choose someone that has the free time to support the students and is considered approachable.

Wikis: Familiarize yourself with the iGEM and [http://openwetwareorg OpenWetWare] (OWW) wikis. The wikis are an important part of team information sharing. Simple text image manipulation is easy enough, but more complex, graphical layouts require experimentation. Some teams also create external sites to augment the wiki. For an example, see the Cambridge team's [http://syntheticbiology.co.uk site].

Fundraising: Think about which organizations or groups might be willing to support or sponsor your team. Make a list. When your team is assembled, create a letter requesting their help. You may want to have students go to groups and give talks about their work, which will also help them polish their presentation skills.

Project Planning: It's never too early to start thinking about what to make.

A lot of [http://openwetware.org/wiki/Synthetic_Biology:BioBricks generally useful information on BioBricks] is available on OpenWetWare.