Summary

What we do with synthetic biology is a precious experience for us. The opportunity of simultaneously learning and engineered a bacteria within synthetic biology field has been an irreplaceable moment. In Indonesia, the development of this science field is arguably minimum. As one of the enthusiasts, we firmly believe that the spirit and knowledge should be transmitted to various layers of Indonesian society. Therefore, we made educational programs for the Indonesian community to accelerate the synthetic biology awareness. The programs reached the community at a various spectrum. First of all, we engaged on the people by both online and direct interactions.

CroTion - Crowd Education

This was our first step on our human practices educational programs. On 20th November 2016, we did a campaign at Car Free Day Dago, Bandung, West Java to validate our assumptions regarding the people awareness on synthetic biology field as well as informing our iGEM project. We asked the civilians simple questions about synthetic biology such as: What is synthetic biology and what is the first thing comes from their mind when hearing a word "Synthetic Biology". The result showed that only 2 out of 10 people were aware of synthetic biology by giving a relevant answer. The rest of it either gave an irrelevant answer or have no idea about it. After a short interview, we briefly explained synthetic biology basic and our project idea. We also taught the people about a vast application of synthetic biology. The civilian gave a positive response and was willing to support us by taking their picture with our team logo.

SynOEdu - Synbio Online Education

Extending our educational programs requires a social media utilization. According to Global Web Index Survey, Indonesia is the most active Asian country, in term of social media usage. The most used social media in Indonesia is Facebook and LINE application. We used this opportunity to educate Indonesian people about synthetic biology. We created an infographic material which contains about iGEM projects and also our public engagement activity. The infographic materials were written in Bahasa to prevent a language barrier and spread from LINE and Facebook Application. We received a lot of positive feedback both on Facebook and LINE application.

Campus Visit

Being the only Indonesian team this year to participate in the iGEM 2017 competition was not fun. We want our dearest friend from another university to compete in iGEM as well. The reason for lack of participation could be the lack of knowledge about the iGEM and synthetic biology itself. Therefore, we visited some campus nearby to educate and share our knowledge. The first campus was Al Azhar Islamic University (UIA), Jakarta. Educational and exposure activities in this event went well and fun. At the end of the session, UAI expressed the interest to be able to follow iGEM competition on the other occasion. The education session closed with taking a photo together. The next campus was Muhammadiyah University (UM), Bandung. We were invited to the campus to give exposure to synthetic biology. The event was done in the classroom with synthetic biology and iGEM as the material. From these events, we hope that we could accelerate the progress of knowledge development in Indonesia regarding the synthetic biology field as well as increasing the Indonesian team participation in the future iGEM occasion.

National Seminar on Synthetic Biology

After several public engagements, we realized the importance of public discussion to see the awareness of synthetic biology amongst academician. Our aim was to serve as a facilitator to discuss the synthetic biology related project as well as ours. We organized a seminar on 6th May 2017 in Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB). It was an exclusive seminar which reserved only for 100 people. We gave students a chance to present their idea regarding synthetic biology. The seminar was fully booked and attended by some prestige Indonesian university student, government, and research institute. We successfully brought in students from Universitas Gajah Mada (UGM), Universitas Padjajaran (Unpad), Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia (UPI) and Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB). We also brought in the Government Research Insititute (LIPI) and Balai Besar Litbang dan Teknologi Biogen (BB Biogen). The discussion gave us a diverse perspective for our project from the government to students level.