About the Challenge
Welcome to the Australasian SynBio Challenge! Through participation in this challenge, you are helping to build a vibrant, diverse, and connected synthetic biology community across Australasia. The challenge aims to create a framework through which student teams and their mentors in academia and industry can apply synthetic biology principles to tackle real-world problems.
Comprehensive SynBio education
The Challenge aims to deliver a well-rounded synthetic biology education experience to tertiary students across the Australasian region. While science is at the core of the program, it's not all that's offered. Engineering, design, commercialisation, entrepreneurship, social science, legal considerations, ethics and biosafety are all key pillars of the Challenge.
Major events
The Challenge provides teams with opportunities to present their research to not only their peers, but to the broader Australasian synthetic biology community. This builds community, and also gives an opportunity to practice key science communication skills
Seminars
Seminars are the backbone of the Challenge program. Teams can drop in on regular seminars to learn from experts about the different branches of synbio. Seminars are recorded, so become a resource for teams in the future. These seminars are supported by our amazing sponsors.
Mentoring
Learning should never be boring, and more times than not one-on-one teaching delivers the best results. Our VC sponsors offer teams on-going mentoring, to help them shape their project with a start-up goal in mind
Deliverables
Design Review
Teams submit a short overview of their projects using a template, outlining their design approaches and experimental plans
Design Extravaganza Presentation
At the first major event, each team presents a 6-8 minute long presentation introducing their projects and outlining their planned approach. Expert reviewers provide feedback, and other team members ask questions. This is a closed event.
Pre-recorded pitch
Teams submit a 3 minute long pitch, aimed to sell their project to investors. It should be short and snappy, with a focus on economics, potential impact and end-user intention
Final Presentation
At the Final Showcase, each team delivers a 10-12 minute long presentation, showing all the work they completed throughout the year. This event is open to the broader synbio community, and teams also have the opportunity to take questions from the audience
Logo and abstract
Each team is asked to submit a logo that represents their project, to be displayed on our website alongside a 250 word abstract. This is each team's legacy!