iGEM 2021 Opening Weekend Festival: by iGEMers for iGEMers
by iGEM HQ
As true engineers, the iGEM community continues to iterate on and improve the innovations of past years to make them even better. Thanks to the hard work of the creative production team, the event hosts, and the many iGEMers who shared their stories, the iGEM 2021 Opening Weekend Festival celebrated the start of the iGEM season as a truly inspiring event created by iGEMers for iGEMers.
Easy to join and accessible to everyone everywhere in the world, the iGEM 2021 Opening Weekend Festival featured over 75 speakers in a fast-paced medley of curated videos and livestreamed sessions, with announcements for many new and ever improving programs for the iGEM 2021 season, including:
iGEM TV
New this year, iGEM TV will officially launch in 2021 with stories, news, and features of interest to the growing iGEM community.
iGEM Podcasts
Back by popular demand, iGEM Podcasts will broadcast new episodes of iGEMers of the World for the 2021 season. New this year, we are launching the #SynBio Podcast, focusing on 5 themes: Computational SynBio, Educational SynBio, Entrepreneurial SynBio, Research SynBio, and Art & Design SynBio. Available now on: Spotify, Apple, Google, Anchor.
iGEM Design League
Focusing on the design step of the engineering approach for Biology (Design, Build, Test, and Learn), the iGEM Design League will be piloted in Latin America to introduce more latinos and latinas to the synthetic biology ecosystem.
iGEM Phoenix Project
A newly launched initiative to increase the number of projects that live on beyond their initial iGEM cycle, featuring a searchable database and collaborative platform for sharing.
Team Grants
With thanks to the Frederick Gardner Cottrell Foundation, iGEM is offering grants of $2,500 for 90 iGEM teams to help them take their projects further than ever before.
Safety & Security Grants
With support from iGEM Partner Open Philanthropy, iGEM’s Safety and Security Program will award up to 5 grants of $5,000 each to teams who wish to work on technical advances in biosafety and biosecurity,
iGEM Merch Shop
Check out classic iGEM designs now available on our beta site. Proceeds support iGEM’s free programs, including EPIC and After iGEM, which provide community support, job opportunities, networking, mentorship, professional development, and more.
iGEM 2021 Jamboree Parties
Satellite events of the 2021 Giant Jamboree with additional regional features, where iGEMers can meet with other teams and celebrate the award ceremony together. Contact 2021-ambassadors@igem.org to learn more about attending or organizing a Jamboree Party in your region.
This year’s Opening Weekend Festival also featured on-demand videos that have been edited and curated, as well as event hosts to help guide participants through the livestream sessions now available on video in three themes:
iGEM Past: Stories of iGEM
Hosted by Guilherme Kundlatsch, iGEM Producer (Brazil)
Doing iGEM in the Time of Pandemic: How 2020 changed everything?
pov: an iGEM Finalist - William & Mary 2015 (UG Grand Prize Winner)
iGEM Values: A team's story from Sumbawa (2014 Chairman's Award)
pov: an iGEM Finalist - Vilnius-Lithuania 2020 (UG Grand Prize Winner)
iGEM Present: Your 2021 iGEM journey
Hosted by Carolina Elizondo, Global Ambassador Program Coordinator (France)
iGEM Future: Imagining the Future
Hosted by Zeeshan Siddiqui, Director of Digital Science Journalism (Australia)
With over 2000 participants and 7 hours of video footage (available now!), the iGEM 2021 Opening Weekend Festival marked another great beginning for a new iGEM season where 350+ teams from over 40 countries will solve local problems and tackle global challenges using synthetic biology.
In closing, we’d like to share some of the sentiments expressed in the final wrap-up session:
"It is a short tale about braveness, imagination, and stoicism. It’s also about companionship, generosity and amusement. It’s a story made of effort and excellence, flavored by laughs and happiness. It’s an ode to the future describing the light of science dueling the darkness of the world. It’s about exploring new horizons. I guess you already know, this is about you. This is your iGEM journey. Your adventure is just starting. You will create your own pathway and I will be looking at the sky, searching for your castles up there.”
- Guilherme Kundlatsch
“Remember that in this iGEM journey you are not alone. You have a whole iGEM community that is willing to help you. You have other teams you can collaborate with. You have the iGEM Ambassadors you can ask for help. Really enjoy your iGEM journey; I am sure it is going to be amazing.”
- Carolina Elizondo
“What an amazing past two days this has been. We learned a lot and we really hope you enjoyed it. Make the most of this journey. We hope to see you around all the amazing events we have planned for you this year. Maybe, next year, one of you will be hosting this festival!”
- Zeeshan Siddiqui
Special thanks for a wonderfully successful iGEM 2021 Opening Weekend Festival go to the many iGEMers who shared their stories; to the event hosts Guilherme Kundlatsch, Carolina Elizondo, Zeeshan Siddiqui; and to the Creative Production Team: Kamile Vainiute, Full Stack Developer (Lithuania), Fabio Maschi, Software Developer (Switzerland), Liepa Siupšinskaite, Illustration Designer (Lithuania), Romeno Wenogk, Backend Developer (UAE), Justine Salazar, Video Editor (Australia), Salva Antón, Artistic Designer (Spain), Shiva Srinivasan, Web Developer (India); and Nemanja Stijepovic, iGEM Vice President of Creative Productions (France).
