Team:Waterloo-E

[[2012 Project Overview]]

For this year's competition, our team is aiming towards building a learning portal that will house content, tools and other templates to assist emerging and existing synbio entrepreneurs gain greater insight on the business elements incorporated within the start-up development process. It will be open-sourced in the sense that other institutions will have the opportunity to contribute their entrepreneurship related material as well. We feel that without the business, there is no science- meaning that an organization is optimally successfully when the two are connected. For years, there has been a particular focus on the scientific potential of synthetic biology but in order to remain sustainable and efficient, it is important that there is an ongoing discussion about the sustainability of the field from an economic perspective.

Our goal is to provide content to entrepreneurs that pertains to three particular stages: Research & Development, Funding and Regulations & Commercialization. The goal is to develop a business development roadmap that provides a concise but comprehensive understanding of entrepreneurship to all stakeholders exposed to synthetic biology. At the iGEM Jamboree, our team has themed their Human Practices topics around the economics of synthetic biology and both the audiences and judging panel were impressed with our research/findings. We want to go a step further and really create something concrete that would benefit this field.

The ultimate goal is to create a collaborative space and a knowledge repository for synthetic biologists and stakeholders that should be engaged within the technology development process. Our vision is to create the foundational e-learning tool for iGEM Entrepreneurship.

If any team is interesting in participating in our User Acceptance Testing, they can contact the UW Entrepreneurship team at uwigem.ent@gmail.com. Your input and feedback would be greatly appreciated!