Mission & Vision
Phoenix aims to increase the number of projects that live on beyond their initial iGEM cycle. In this way, we hope that the iGEM community can move forward in making engineering progress on these pressing issues by iterating on each other’s ideas.
Goals
Engineering
Easily searchable iGEM data makes it easier to find past teams that worked on projects similar to yours or to be inspired to pick up where another project left off. We hope to help all teams that want to continue the work of a previous team by connecting teams to the alumni that were on that team, if possible.
Stories
What happened to iGEMers and their projects? We want to tell stories about the incredible journey the iGEM community throughout the years. As we try understanding how teams have evolved over time, we can begin to understand how iGEM has been laying the foundations for the field of Synthetic Biology. We want to hear how iGEM impacted you, and how your project or your experience lived on, in big ways and small. Every iGEMer’s story is an important piece of the iGEM story.
Data
iGEM teams generate tremendous amounts of data. Some of it is captured in a structured way, such as awards won by the team, and others captured in ways such as, a blog post about lessons a team learned in their iGEM journey, and some data remains uncaptured. We aim to make structured iGEM data readily available and easily searchable for teams. We also aim to incorporate more data, that is currently unstructured, over time. We hope to leverage the power of the iGEM community to help fill in the gaps by creating opportunities to add to our database.
The database
Reach out now!
Looking for inspiration?
If you want to building off the work of previous teams, reach out to phoenix@igem.org and we would love to try and help connect you!
We are not the first group to explore the world of iGEM data!
iGEM insights
Take a look at the iGEM insights page to learn how the group is using histotical iGEM data to study the science of science, which uses large datasets to understand the mechanisms underlying the practice of science and engineering - from what problems people chose to work on, to the trajectories of the field and the careers of the people within it.
The Matchmaker project
You can also take a look at what teams have been able to build using iGEM data, such as the Matchmaker project from the 2015 NTU Trondheim team. The iGEM Matchmaker used keyword analysis to help match teams with similar projects in order to ease collaboration. Although this project is not currently being maintained, it is an excellent example of what iGEM teams can do!
Coming Soon to Phoenix
- Contact previous teams!
- Find out what happened to projects after the competition.
- Track how projects have evolved over time.
- A new user interface for the database!