The iGEM EPIC 2021 Venture Creation Labs
Two weeks ago, the regional Venture Creation Labs (VCLs) culminated in 3 consecutive Demo Days sessions held across 3 different time zones simultaneously - after 3 weeks of hard work, over 30 teams pitched their varied and game-changing ideas to panels of specially curated judges. Having been through intensive training over the VCL, learning the fundamentals of building their businesses and how to pitch their ideas to investors, while getting expert advice from weekly panel sessions with esteemed panelists (including people like Emily Leproust and Jason Kelly!), the teams showcased their improved pitches and learnings in an intense demo day.
Our first kickoff event with participants from the APAC region!
We kicked off with the APAC region, where we had 7 teams working on ideas varying from educational tools for synthetic biology to rapid diagnostic tests for malaria. Our judges, Bhavna Pandya from BioRiiDL and Ipshita Mandal-Johnson from Global Bio Fund gave pointers to teams and awarded team Bio without Boundaries, consisting of team members Gokul Bhaskaran and Shruti Shridhar, the best pitch - and they also scooped up the most improved prize! Bio without Boundaries proposed a platform dedicated to training a new crop of biologists by creating a specialized curriculum revolving around research hypotheses and building a support system of appropriate courses and mentors around it.
Next up we headed west to the EMEA region, where yet another exciting crop of pitches and ideas ranging from protein peptide design using artificial intelligence to inducing rainfall with biological proteins were showcased. Our judging panel, consisting of Pia Michel from Blueyard Capital, Jason Mellad of Start Codon, and Tess van Stekelenburg from Hummingbird Ventures, gave insightful feedback to the teams, and crowned team Zimmuti as the best team! Zimmuti, who pitched the development of cyanobacteria to produce degradable bioplastics and consisting of members Stephen Mukuze, Kenani Kenani, Stephen Opiyo and Petros Chigwechokha, also won our BioHackathon held earlier this year, and it was really gratifying to see the team improve and progress. Other awards included the runner-up team, Rapidemic, the best pitch of the session going to Synu, and PeptAI clinching the best newly formed team prize.
Lastly, we came to the Americas region - where we had judges Jun Axup of IndieBio, Darren Cooke of Berkeley Skydeck and Francia Navarrete of Protera evaluating ideas encompassing cryoprotectants for plant crops to engineered probiotics for carbohydrate sequestration and everything in between. Ultimately, Algae Appetit, who were developing algae as a meat replacement and working as a cross border team with Revathi Reddy and Grecia O’Brien from Canada and Daniel Garcia from Mexico, clinched the judge's choice, with Cell Inc. and CrioPROT (who also won most improved!) emerging as runner-ups. Special mention to team SynBio Creations for being a favorite of the Americas mentors as well!
Our panel sessions with Marc, Jason and Emily where they shared on various aspects on SynBio entrepreneurship.
Throughout the VCL, we made sure to have diversity of participation and inclusivity as our hallmarks - we believe that synthetic biology is a democratizing technology that should and deserves to be utilized by everyone around the world, regardless of their race or gender, to solve local problems. As such, we are proud to say that over half of our VCL participants and potential bioentrepreneurs are women, a majority of which came from underrepresented backgrounds such as LATAM, India and Africa, and developing solutions unique to their own individual locations. Representation is also key to fostering and inspiring our next generation of Synthetic Biology entrepreneurs, and we are proud to have a diverse set of panelists and judges.
The teams will now proceed to the mentorship programme, whereby we at iGEM EPIC have catered a diverse, capable and enthusiastic set of mentors who have had significant experience in the Synthetic Biology entrepreneurial space. Keep an eye out here for more to come from these great teams!
Lastly, if you're keen on participating in iGEM EPIC, we will be hosting a summer bootcamp for iGEM 2021 participants - watch out for more details coming out soon and keep track by following our socials!
