Summary of iGEM Canada meeting at the 2009 Jamboree

[Danielle]

Hi guys,

The meeting on Saturday was very successful, and I'm really glad the
Canadian teams have now had a chance to sit down together and discuss
what issues we're all facing and what we can do about them. Andre has
already posted about some of the key things that were discussed during
the meeting (if you haven't received those by email, you can check the
Google Group page to read them), but to sum up, here's a quick rundown
of what happened:

1. Graham Cromar gave an introduction about the rationale for forming
an organization like iGEM Canada.

2. Andre Masella spoke about OGEM and the meeting of Ontario teams
hosted by Waterloo this past summer.

3. Jen Hill from Alberta Ingenuity spoke about its role with respect
to support for the Alberta teams and how aGEM was run.

4. Phil Schwab from BIOTECanada talked about the role of BIOTECanada.

5. Randy Rettburg from iGEM HQ spoke about the future of the iGEM
competition and the possible role of regional iGEM organizations in
the coming years.

6. Open discussion on what teams want from an organization like iGEM
Canada. Major topics of discussion here included (in more or less
decreasing order of extent of discussion):
a) educational/training materials and resources
b) some means for teams to share parts, strains, etc. with one another
(perhaps something like a Craigslist for iGEM teams)
c) strategies for securing funds for teams at the national level
d) the possibility of a pan-Canada distributed software project
e) means for communicating with other Canadian iGEMers

If you have your own notes or thoughts, feel free to add to the list
or elaborate on the points I've listed here.

Danielle