Team:UPNAvarra Spain/Project Communication
Project communication
Navarra TV
Thanks to our advisor Juanjo Rubio, we had the chance to go to Navarra TV, the public channel of our region Navarre, the 11th of June. Imma Farran (Primary PI), Sara Rey (Instructor) and Aaron Adrian (team member) were received in a popular local programme called “La Muga”, where they were interviewed answering questions about iGEM, synthetic biology and our team UPNAvarra_Spain.
Television is the main media in the world due to its extreme audience, and thanks to it we had the chance to present iGEM to the majority of our community, as Navarra TV is the most important public channel in our region. In addition, some other team members came to visit all the installations, and the people who work there gave us a whole tour through their facilities. We had the opportunity to see all the sets, audio and production rooms, it was really interesting as most of us had never been before in a TV facility. Here you have the whole interview: Navarra TV
Newspapers
Here in Spain, newspapers are still a very popular divulgative media where people like reading about news and innovations. Specially older generations tend to read this kind of media, so we thought that it was a really good opportunity to bring science and synthetic biology closer to the elder.
UPNAvarra_Spain team has appeared in two of the most relevant newspapers in Navarre:
Diario de Navarraand
Diario de Noticias.
Some other digital newspapers have also contacted with us, and thanks to it more people, connected to modern social medias, had the chance to learn about us and iGEM. These are the webs were we have appeared: Europapress Pamplonaactual Economia Social Navarra
Radios
During the whole project, different team members have gone to several radio programs in order to present the iGEM initiative and our project. The Radio is one of the most important and relevant media, so we thought it was a good opportunity to tell its audience about iGEM in educational programs. To sum up, Pablo went with some of our degree professors to COPE, a national channel well known in all Spain. Sara, one of our instructors had an interview in the National Radio of Pamplona and Maria, Secondary PI went to Euskal Irratia, a famous channel in the communities of Navarre and Basque Country, and to SER. Thanks to the radio, we could make promotion for iGEM and our team. Listen in Cope
Public University of Navarre
In the Public University of Navarre (UPNA) practically every student uses MiAulario, an online platform where both students and professors can check their subjects, projects and, in this case, about UPNAvarra_Spain! On the main page, there is a noticeboard where everyone can read the University’s news. We contacted them and they accepted our proposal, hence every student, professor and UPNA worker was able to check about our team and our project.
UPNAvarra_Spain was presented as the first team from the Public University of Navarre that participates in iGEM and the bacteria biosensors were explained in a simple way. Since our University is not specialized in pure sciences, we tried to explain the project in a simple way, to make sure every student and worker was able to understand it. Lots of classmates told us that they loved our article, so we can say it was a complete success!
For more information visit the following link: Public University of Navarre.
EUSynBioS
While one of our team members was searching information about synthetic biology, he came across a blog with several articles about iGEM teams: EUSynBioS. That blog belonged to the European Synthetic Biology Society, an association of synthetic biology students and post-docs, whose goal is to create a community for European investigators where they can cooperate with each other.
So, we contacted them to see if they were interested in our project and could post an article about our team. We were very happy when one member of their Steering Committee, Stefano Donati, accepted our proposal and the 3rd of October the article was posted!
In the article we wanted to exhibit to their community the main points of our labor, as well as to raise awareness about the environment pollution and to expand iGEM’s principles: “Students are expected to be honest with their research, cooperate with one another, practice good sportsmanship, be respectful of their peers and celebrate everyone's efforts.”
For more information visit the following link: EUSynBioS.
AN Group
AN Group is one of the most important agro-food cooperatives in Spain. This cooperative produces different kinds of aliments, from cereals, fruits and vegetables to poultry. In addition, they even have their own fuel stations.
They invited us to their headquarters, where they presented us their team and explained us how their industry works. Afterwards, we explained them about what iGEM is and what our project consisted in. They decided to sponsor us since they believed that our project idea and their goals were similar as both of us want to take care for the environment and fight against pollution.
On September, an article of our visit was published on the AN’s magazine, a relevant specialized magazine on agriculture. This magazine is used by AN Group to keep their followers updated on news of the agronomic sector. In the article, there is not only a summary of our visit but also an explanation of the iGEM competition, where they highlight the great impact synthetic biology will have on the future. Furthermore, they spoke about the biosensors we have created to detect the presence of some heavy metals and nitrates and how it could be used by farmers to know detect them on their lands.