Fundraising
Funding from Wadiz, KU projects, and Online debates
Wadiz
Introduction
In addition to financial funding for iGEM participation and successful completion, materials, and places needed for experiments were also provided in various laboratories at Korea University.
They are:
Wadiz is a crowdfunding platform company, which operates securities-type crowdfunding (investment) and rewards-type crowdfunding (rewards). The platform consists of various funding categories such as food and travel, starting with startups and cultural content.
The field challenged by KUAS is the 'Wadiz Rewards' field, which is a project field that provides products or services to raise funds for value realization. Funding can be obtained by providing materials or products difficult to find in the existing market.
We did :
KUAS funded for 50 days under the title of "Please support the research of students from Korea/Yonsei University for early diagnosis of cervical cancer!" and received a total of 732,000 won in sponsorship and a total of 25 people participated.
The proposed rewards include KUAS' self-made keyring, grip talk, tumbler, and counseling opportunity.
We have simplified the sponsorship process by generating a QR code for sponsorship pages, enabling faster and easier access for sponsors.
We wanted to appeal the risk of cervical cancer and the need for "early diagnosis of cervical cancer" in our project to receive the financial support needed for participation and research in IGEM.
How:
- In order to proceed with the Wadiz funding project, it must pass a very thorough review by Wadiz company through understanding the funding/familiarizing with the terms used in Wadiz / project overall story design/reward design/refund and exchange policy establishment/advertising review guidelines. - For the Wadiz project review, KUAS made comprehensive preparations by organizing the participants into a story design team/reward design team/feedback team. - Through active communication with the Wadiz manager, KUAS's funding objectives and intentions were effectively communicated to those interested in funding without any inconvenience.
The Wadiz platform is an active page visited by a wide variety of age groups, occupational groups, and genders. Not only did we create a page for sponsorship through the Wadiz platform, but we also wanted to inform the risk of cervical cancer, which is overlooked by many people regardless of gender/age, and the need for early diagnosis. Additionally, we wanted to gain a lot of attention and support by promoting our society and iGEM project widely.
CLUB ACTIVATION PROJECT
They are:
Korea University has a "Club Activation Project" that allows students to independently plan and analyze activities that have not been previously attempted to revitalize club (society) activities. Planning for a novel activity or project not previously undertaken by existing clubs qualifies you for participation in the program. After the application has been processed, the award and subsidy will be determined based on the content of the result report.
We did :
In this year’s project, we planned for the following six contents:
1) International Synthetic Biology Contest iGEM Competition 2) Wadiz Funding Activities Related to Synthetic Biology 3) Planning of bioproduct start-up applying synthetic biological principles and participation in competition
While continuing the existing KUAS activities, we planned new challenges and activities that could possibly promote the expansion of synthetic biology within the framework of the existing plan. In addition, the existing plans were revised and implemented by looking for related events and plans.
How :
1)International Synthetic Biology Contest iGEM Competition & 2) Wadiz Funding Activities Related to Synthetic Biology
We participated in the International Synthetic Biology Competition iGEM, KUAS's biggest goal. KUAS was the first team to participate in iGEM in Korea and has the longest history among the iGEM teams in Korea. Experiments and funding were conducted through idea meetings with academic members and supervisors.
See above for more details about Wadiz activities.
3) Planning of bioproduct start-up applying synthetic biological principles and participation in competition
It was intended to expand into new fields by directly designing a "menstrual-type biosensor for cervical cancer diagnosis" that it wanted to submit to iGEM and expanding it to "start-up." In addition, by analyzing the business feasibility and profit structure of our project, we wanted to identify the possibility of 'can the product be widely used in real life?' and connect it to an opportunity for many public to be interested in synthetic biology.
In order to objectively evaluate the commercial ideas of synthetic biology, we expanded our funding plan to a startup contest that we had never tried before, by participating in the 2023 Seoul Women's Startup Idea Contest. We passed the document evaluation and got a 1:1 consulting opportunity with startup experts. Through this consulting, it was possible to establish and develop a direction and specific action plan for synthetic biology to be familiar to the public, especially the consumer market.
[Consulting]
[Acceptance mail]
4) Mentoring and Synthetic Biology Discussion Contest for Middle and High School Students
KUAS visited middle and high schools in person to provide mentoring services related to students' careers. The mentoring consisted of topics related to college entrance exams, introductions to college life, and explanations of bio-related courses that interested middle and high school students. In addition, an online debate contest was held for middle and high school students to raise interest in the unfamiliar field of synthetic biology, allowing students to study deeper by studying the recent trends in synthetic biology and dealing with controversial issues themselves.
[Mentoring]
Synthetic Biology Online Seminar
Since there was a limit to promoting synthetic biology at the undergraduate level, professors and other experts were invited to hold a webinar.
As a synthetic biology club, KUAS aims to contribute to the rapid adoption of the new future that synthetic biology offers. To achieve this goal, we tried to popularize synthetic biology through diversification of sub-projects, active sponsorship promotions, and new forms of education. It is not easy for a large number of people to set one goal together and complete a new project every year, but the constant efforts of the club members who gathered to study synthetic biology were able to succeed in each of these sub-project items.
We were able to receive a grant from the school for this project in recognition of the positive effects spread not only to the same school but also to students of different ages by working on these sub-projects.