At the end of June, our team was on the road to Wageningen. The aim of this meeting was first to have a good time together but also to meet other iGEM teams from Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. It was a great opportunity to share about science with other students coming from abroad. We had the pleasure to present BactaSun in front of those iGEM groups. Indeed, what would be science without sharing it? At the end of the day we came back to Belgium with a lot of interesting ideas about our project and much more energy to do it properly.
![](https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2017/3/3a/UCLOUVAIN-Wageningen1.jpeg)
![](https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2017/4/43/UCLOUVAIN-Wageningen2.jpeg)
We noticed that synthetic biology is not yet a common topic among students. In order to explain our project in front of a large audience and at the same time present what synthetic biology actually consists in, we decided to schedule a conference. We collaborated with "Café Numérique". The concept was to follow the presentation and then participate in a debate about artificial nature with a good Belgian beer in your hands. We started the conference with the presentation of our iGEM project and then we had the pleasure to discuss with Gauthier Chapelle. He is a scientist who worked as scientist officer for the International Polar Foundation, he promoted Biomimicry in Europe and is now a co-founder of a sustainability consultancy firm. Moreover, we were pleased to host Dr. Philippe Gabant, a specialist in molecular biology and founder of a biotech company in synthetic biology called Syngulon.
![](https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2017/e/e1/UCLOUVAIN_café_conférence.jpeg)
Printemps des Sciences 2018 (Literal translation « Science Springtime »). This event is co-organized by all the universities of Wallonia, the UCL among them. It is a public meeting for all the science fans! It will be a good opportunity for us to explain what synthetic biology consists in as well as introducing the iGEM competition. We will share our experiences in the lab and at the Jamboree in Boston. In this way, it could help drawing our way for new Belgian teams.
![](https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2017/f/ff/UCLOUVAIN-Printemps_des_sciences_2018.png)