Nation-wide Collaborations
cGEM
cGEM was a competition organized by members belonging to diverse Canadian iGEM teams and Synbio Canada on October 2nd and 3rd, 2021. Every member on the cGEM planning committees contributed to making the event possible such as promoting the event, contacting speakers for workshops and sponsors, finding prizes and judging the presentations using a modified grading scheme provided by iGEM. This was an especially important event since it gave Canadian iGEM teams the opportunity to practice before the Jamboree and build connections between the teams. Every participating team needed to submit a video presentation and do a 10-minute presentation followed by a Q & A. iGEM Concordia received a Silver Medal including a cash prize.
Special Collaboration with Université Laval - Diversity & Inclusion workshop
iGEM Concordia, ULaval, Thessaloniki, Patras and After iGEM WiSTEM collaborated together in order to produce the Women in STEM - Diversity and Inclusion Workshop and the Rosalind Chronicles. Our collaboration is very unique since it happened by chance! First, our team and Ulaval were planning to hold a diversity and inclusion workshop where one team member from ULaval would present on Women's contribution in Sciences throughout history while a Concordia team member would present on how to make iGEM/research teams more diverse and inclusive. This presentation was reviewed by Dr. Eve Langelier, the Quebec Chair for Women in Science and Engineering who was so helpful in giving us resources and tips to make our presentation better.
Additionally, we discussed a way for international teams to collaborate; by submitting a picture of a woman in STEM with a summary of their research contributions. When we posted our initiative on the iGEM collab page, we saw that iGEM teams Thessaloniki and Patras had just posted their initiative of the Rosland chronicles: the same idea as us. From here, we contacted iGEM Thessaloniki and Patras teams and asked them to combine our initiatives and invited them to Women in STEM - Diversity and Inclusion Workshop. On the day of the event, iGEM Thessaloniki presented a story about how Greek women were treated in sciences while iGEM Patras and After iGEM WiSTEM presented the Rosalind Chronicles which encouraged iGEM teams to write short biographies on women in STEM from their country that inspires them.
International Collaborations
Lab coat challenge with iGEM Sorbonne
The #IGEMTravellingLabcoat challenge by iGEM Sorbonne involved passing a lab coat along to different iGEM teams whereby each team would add their own customization to the lab coat.
Postcard collab with iGEM Duesseldorf
The iGEM Duesseldorf Postcard Project involved designing a postcard related to synthetic biology whereby each participating team would receive a physical copy of each designed postcard. We collaborated with iGEM Duesseldorf by designing a postcard based on AstroYeast.
Synthetic Biology Song Mashup with McMaster SynBio Team
The McMaster SynBio Team created a song about synthetic biology and iGEM to the tune of a mashup of popular songs to teach younger students about these topics. We participated by singing along to the lyrics sent to us by the McMaster SynBio Team
iGEM monument challenge with iGEM Paris-Saclay
iGEM Paris-Saclay created the #iGEMMonumentChallenge in which participating teams would gather in front of one of their cities monuments and capture a picture. We participated by posing in front of Montreal's Olympic Stadium.
Introduction video for iGEM Nantes
iGEM Nantes asked different iGEM teams, including us, to send in a video of a team member saying their name, their team and where the team is from to showcase the international diversity of the iGEM community.
iGEM Guelph Interview
We collaborated with iGEM Guelph by participating in their series interviewing international iGEM teams. The interviews are to be compiled and distributed to Canadian high school students as educational content.
iGEM Aix-Marseille
The Aix-Marseille team created an Instagram contest in which iGEM project titles were described with emojis and to see which participant would be able to guess the most titles. We participated by selecting emojis that described AstroYeast.
iGEM Friendzymes
The #RaiseAPipette challenge by iGEM Friendzymes involved sharing relatable mistakes with the iGEM community. We participated by sharing the post in which we were tagged, sharing our mistakes and tagging 3 fellow teams.
iGEM Moscow City
The iGEM Moscow City team created the Fluffy Team challenge on Instagram, where other teams are encouraged to share pictures of their pets. We shared pictures of our team�s furry friends and passed on the challenge by tagging other iGEM teams.
iGEM Tirupati (India)
Weekly mood challenge in instagram where we share with a GIF how we feel for each day.
iGEM ULaval
We co-organised a women in STEM workshop.