Just wanted to do a quick round of introductions before we meet at the conference. I’m a social science student engaged with a makerspace in Kathmandu (Nepal) called Karkhana that designs classes for middle school students…my friends do all the designing, tinkering and teaching stuff while I hang around trying to make sense of their methodology and other meta madness. Hope to see some of you at my talk on Karkhana’s work culture and approach to education at the Conference (I think it’s on the 11th). See you there! 
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Great to get the personal introductions started!
about myself. Marc Dusseiller also known as dusjagr. i am part of the organizing team for BioFabbing and super happy that we managed to bring so many people together from various backgrounds and cultures.
my role was to bridge between the more institutional academic environments and various grassroots communities in a global context. and only with your help and trust, i think we managed a unique convergence of these “worlds”.
besides that, i have been involved since the early days of “DIYbio” and we started the Hackteria Network in winter 2009, after a collaborative event hosted in madrid, called “Interactivos?09 - Garage Science”. It inspired us to bring more open source mindsets and more art and design into the early discussion around do-it-yourself bio and synthetic biology for students. our co-founder in Bangalore has started in 2009 a new course on Synbio for Artists and Designers and myself, i have been spending a few years in DIY electronics and educational hacky maker envrinonments in Switzerland (Swiss Mechatronic Art Society).
For me bringing together my background in nanobiotechnology and the newly aquired interests in hackerspaces and DIY methodologies was a great combination to continue within the hackteria network. while in the beginning we were dreaming of an online resource of instructions and how-to’s for amateurs (artists, hackers, educators and the generally curious) and set up a wiki, it was challenging to motivate people to put stuff online with our very broad approach to the field from bio-art, synbio, diy electronics or making cheese…
so through physical gatherings, hack-labs and other collaborative formats we focused more on bringing people together in real-life and slowly a global hackteria network has been formed, from which many had the possibility to come together also here in geneva! thx!
some other inf about me: http://www.hackteria.org/wiki/Dusjagr
cu soon!
marc
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@sabhyata.timsina, we’re sharing a room. Looking forward to meeting and hearing about DIYBio in Nepal!
I’m a cultural anthropologist writing my dissertation on DIY mycology, mostly from a multispecies perspective. I also work part-time for MycoWorks, which started as the co-founder’s weird biofabbing art project and grew into an aspiring material company, still finding its ways through the maze of the start-up economy (mycoworks.com). Of late, my interests have converged on the psychedelic “renaissance,” which I’m thinking will be the focus of my next project, far on the horizon, past the dissertation and finding funding.
Looking forward to meeting you all!
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I am Thomas, a kind of evangelist of Open Science in Haiti and French speaking African countries, where I share values of cognitive justice, Commons and the free dissemination of knowledge. I am leading this battle as the current International President Association for the Promotion of Open Science in Haïti and Africa.
I am holder of BSc. In Biochemistry (University of Yaoundé I, Cameroon); M.Ed. option : Biology (University of Yaoundé I); M.A. in Didactic of Science (Université Laval, canada). Currently, I am PhD student in Information and Communication (Université Laval, canada), the topic of my research is on practices in Maker/hackerspace of subsaharian Africa.
My thoughts is : Biohacking can improve the quality of life, health facilities and education, especially in Africa
I have very happy to see one more time, people from Karkhana @sabhyata.timsina @sunoj I have interacted with Aakriti in chile. I am aslo happy to have the opportunity to discuss again with people of Mycoworks @jbsteinhardt I have shared with Philippe Ross In Chile too.
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HI!
I am a biologist and a relative newby to the DIT-research game, which I only discovered thanks to a biosensor workshop for my former day job on the BRAAVOO project. I never thought I would be doing soldering to make a DIYfluor detector, and I fell in love with the idea of Open Science and the whole atmosphere at Hackuarium! I am founder of a public service group, AGiR! Action for Genomic integrity through Research! which revolves around a ‘big picture’ concept of genomic integrity, that basically tries to include all the molecular genetic details of cells, esp RNAs (but even a crosslink between protein and nucleic acids can be considered an insult to genomic integrity)… The idea is that there are many simple things we can do to protect genomic integrity and improve health, not only for ourselves, but for the planet and future generations. At Hackuarium open source methods to look directly at DNA damage in your own cells, inner cheek cells, are my main projects, but I also like to help others with microbiology tests for citizen science and explore moss life… and just see what others are hacking! 
Looking forward to the convergence!
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Hii @jbsteinhardt @thomasmboa! See you soon!
Hey @sabhyata.timsina and the rest of the forum
My name is Rosen Bogdanov, I am a graduate of art-science turned sociology of science and technology PhD student, working on public participation in science and technology through hacker culture and other alternative STEM groups. In particular, I work with the concept of openness and the various hypes, practices and politics around it.
I share / vaguely contribute at the local DIYBio group in Barcelona. The project I do there is more related to food and my passion for yerba mate, doing fizzy drinks of mate.
I also work at the 4gatos hacklab here in Barcelona - a sort of passed its age space, like the 90s hackerspace, in a squat (here a link to the predominantly occidental phenomenon of squatting). We do workshops about PC security practices for anyone interested, collect the trash of digital culture, repairing computers, basic networking for social collectives, etc. The space is very nice and we share it with another collective, oriented towards “free housing” and the Tuesday atmosphere is very nice if you are ever around Barcelona :).
Looking forward to learning more about Karkhana and the work the happens there :). Have a nice journey
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Hola biofabbers <3 Here Vanessa, art worker and trained designer based in Switzerland since since 2014. I believe on speculology, design fiction and day dreaming at the crossroads biotechnology, design and art as a way to enable other realities to exist. I believe that the middleground of creative communities of hackers have the power to subvert the dominating role of science and technology and therefore, guide us towards a more inclusive existence. I research on the role of an artist to influence the social imaginary through performative workshops and interfaces that focus on the radical poetry of the otherness; multiple species entangled by the technological object / apparatus. I am looking forward to meet all the creative minds at biofabbing and to have fruitful exchanges and possible future collaborations and fabulations. Laistearte! more here my work
Great! Lots to learn from eveyone there as a newbie in this scene. Right now I’m especially interested in how the ethics of tinkering can be used to improve pedagogical practices. Looking forward to interact and share exchange our interests!
My research is based on practice-based methodologies and deployed through Co-lab Workshops, working in collaboration with institutions including, but not limited to UCL, EPFL, University of Cambridge and Tsingua University. (http://openscienceschool.org/home/biocolab/) - website building in progress…
My interest lies in exploring the relationship between design, science and technology, especially in the area of biology. Enabling designers to work with biologists will help overcome current barriers in the discipline and open up the possibilities for future research.
Through my own work, I enjoy attempt to create an effective dialogue between design and science. I aim to push the boundaries of design itself across different disciplines.
If interested please post some comments on my suggestions for an unconference topic: Workshop for Workshops: How to design space for interdisciplinary projects in Scientific Research? Workshop for Workshops: How to design space for interdisciplinary projects in Scientific Research?
Hi everyone!
To introduce myself, I’m a former zebrafish developmental biologist and volunteer community organiser for the Berlin science hacking community. Right now we’re busy planning the 5th edition of the annual Berlin Science Hack Day, due to take place in the autumn. After a few years organising as a small team, this year we’ve opened up the SHDB family to make a much bigger group - so now we’re learning a lot about sharing leadership, mentoring, and how great it is to work with a big team We also run a twice-monthly meetup (a weekday evening discussion stammtisch and a day-long hacklab) that keeps our community connected through the year.
Lately I’ve been getting a little frustrated with the hype around citizen science, the differences between institution-led initiatives v.s. grassroots projects, and the inequity in terms of support and access to research funding. Following some weird experiences, a few of us have started to get together to plan some proactive advocacy work on behalf of grassroots citizen science, under the title of DIY Science Network – we’re hoping to get to the European Commission. We’ll be running a couple of sessions about that – I’ll post more in separate session posts.
I’m also part of the current open leadership training programme from Mozilla Science Lab (which I can really recommend) and will be running some part of the DIY science network project during the Mozilla global sprint, 1-2nd June – I’ll be looking out for some collaborators for that
Otherwise, I manage science/art/open movement projects as a freelancer to pay the bills - currently I’m working for Wikimedia Deutschland and partners on Coding da VInci - a hackathon-style event and advocacy campaign around open digital cultural heritage.
Really looking forward to the conference and to meeting you all!
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hELLO i am Mary Maggic (http://maggic.ooo), I am an artist hacking estrogen hormone thereby hacking Gender and the systems of hormonal Colonization on our bodies, society, and ecosystem, - working with other artists and members of Hackteria we’ve made some low cost “hobo science” “freak science” protocols for detection and extraction of hormones from bodily fluids (urine) and earthly fluids (river gynecology) and personally work on manufacturing performances or speculative fictions to "culturalize the science "..... Previously I have been a film documentarian on the U.S. DIYBio scene as well as “bioartists” who pioneered the field. The film series DIYSECT (www.diysect.com) focuses on the sociopolitical, cultural impacts of biotechnology, told through the lens of artists and biohackers working in this intersection. like others who have “known” this scene for a while, I have a growing criticism with the tech hype domination, esp in the U.S. silicon valley startup transhumanist ethos and the glamour and the promises (i also just did two years at the mit medialab and know the techno-utopian rhetoric a bit too well now) SUPER LOOKING FORWARD TO MEETING NEW PEOPLE AND HACKING WITH FRIENDS<33333333
Hello guys, my name is Raph, a bio-designer and a researcher, interested in developing a design language that utilises biological processes (eg. molecular biology, metabolic modelling) and materials (DNA, proteins and cells). I’m currently doing a PhD in developing interfaces that would facilitate DIY synthesis of cyanobacterial (synechocystis spp) pigments, with primary focus on the design community (eg. textiles, graphic design, architecture etc). I look forward to opening up a discussion and meeting you all! Links to past projects and workshops here: https://biohackanddesign.com/
Hi everyone,
I’m Philipp and I’m currently spending most of my waking hours working on Bento Lab with @bethan
For me this whole bio-media journey started as a computer science student getting involved in iGEM and working on a collaboration with London Biohackspace. Before things really got going at Bento I spent a year with BCL in Japan and discovering my true calling as a Karaoke performer.
Looking forward to see all of you soon!
Hello everyone!
I’m Luc and I believe I started this whole mess when I suggested we would host the DIYbio Europe annual un-meeting in Lausanne last November. After many adventures, I end up not being formally involved but very very excited to see you all in Geneva (and very thankful to the team and Bruno Strasser for taking over something that grew bigger than what I could deal with). I’m a chemist by training turned science hacker (but not a maker, rather a thinker) trying everything I can to challenge the status quo. I co-founded Hackuarium after finding inspiration in a lot of people who will be present at the conference.
Namaste, I’m Jenny.
My team and I just finished the anual 4. Make Munich Makerfestival, which was really great this year. Make Munich is an independent community organised festival and has nothing to do with Makerfaire. We had a biohacking theme area and talk panel with Rüdiger Trojok, Julian Chollet, Jerome Lutz, Urs Gaudenz, Philipp Boing… So we see us here again a couple of days later
As lu_cyP I’m also confronted with dealing with a growing team and expectations, leadership and making paticipants and visitors both happy.
Originally I’m a industrial designer with marketing expertise but I’m much to interested in the building blocks of the world to keep on a narrow road. I love fungi, bacteria, yeast and run kombucha experiments. At the moment I’m very interested in air quality monitoring.
See you later
Hey everyone,
My Name is Julian Chollet – I’m a molecular biologist and biohacker with a passion for scientific outreach and workshopology, especially concerning the endless and underexplored biodiverity of microorganisms. One of my current projects -still at a very early stage -will focus on creative learning environments and public participation in science with emphasis on the invisible world (https://mikrobiomik.org/en).
I’ll arrive on Thursday and am very excited to reunite with some old friends and make new connections!!
Enjoy the first days and see you soon!!
Guten Tag!
I am Günter I am into art with biological qualities, one strain of my
projects are the Polycinease http://polycinease.com experiments and I am
also a member of pavillon_35 http://pavillon35.polycinease.com/.
In the latest experiments Return to Dilmun, Roland, Federico and me did
image retouching using the popular crispr/cas9. We translated digital
images into DNA and manipulated the image data on a molecular level - take
a molecule leave a molecule.
We premiered at the pavillon_35´s Nature Animée #2 exhibition together
with Kristin, Moya and Sonja. We were also lucky, we had have, Caroline,
Tobias, Mary Marc, Urs, Maya and Vanessa and many more on board, sporting
some of the finest biohacking.
I will arrive on Thursday looking forward to meet you all.
Best Günter
Dear community,
I’m also very exited to meet you all! Some of you I know personally but the most of you I just heard about or read just the first time here in the forum. My name is Bjorn and I’m associated to the Science Shop Potsdam (Potsdam is nearly a suburb of Berlin) and we are actually building facilities and infrastructure for the DIY-science scene. My very own interest is to build a Biohackerspace within this community and to explore the synergies of grass-root Citizen Science with academia.
In my second life im phD student in plant ecology and within this I work on topics such as nature conservation and also mosses, in both cases very much on an organismic level.
I’m very exited to exchange opinions, experiences and utopias with you.
I’ll join you on Thursday
best regards
Bjorn
Hi, I’m Bruno (Strasser).
Former biologist (spectroscopy and photosythesis research), now historian of science at the University of Geneva, heading a group wokring on the “Rise of the Citizen Science: Rethinking Science and Public Participation”. We try to understand the origins, meanings, and possible futures of public participation in the (bio)sciences (including DIYbio).
Also running a public outreach lab in Geneva, the Bioscope. In addition to outreach activities for school kids and the greater public, we run a citizen science project, Participatory Biodiversity, DNA barcoding insects and plants, and create innovative tools for science education, like Collective Microscope (microsope with a wifi camera), or Tree of Life (a new tree of life)!