Team:TU-Delft/Human-Practice/Rathenau

The first of September we hosted the “Meeting of young minds” kick-off, the Preparation of Minds for the [http://www.rathenau.nl/en/agenda/meetings/meeting-of-young-minds.html Jamboree event Friday, Sept. 30]. This day was organized in collaboration with initiator the Rathenau Instituut. This institute stimulates the research and debate on science and technology. All day long the political youth parties and all Dutch iGEM teams listened to talks about the future of synthetic biology and bio ethics. There was also a short discussion on different views towards these still developing standards. The speakers were most Dutch iGEM teams (Amsterdam, Wageningen, Delft), TU Delft professor Luuk van der Wielen ([http://www.be-basic.org/ BE Basic]), Politician Chantal Gillard, Wageningen University Professor Henk van der Belt and COGEM’s bio-safety specialist Huib de Vriend.

It was a very lively evening with enthusiastic discussions amongst scientists and politicians. The guest speakers were addressing complicated issues together and the audience, young scientists and politicians, eagerly joined in. When the time for organised discussion was up it quickly resumed in the bar accompanied with some drinks. A short video compilation was made by the Rathenau Instituut to give an illustration of the evening. We would like to thank the Rathenau for the oppertunity to host this day and for the agreement that we are allowed to show the movie on our website!

The 30th of September the Rathenau Instituut will organise the [http://www.rathenau.nl/en/agenda/meetings/meeting-of-young-minds.html “Meeting of young Minds”] day in collaboration with the European iGEM Committee 2011. As a warm-up for the jamboree iGEM participants can debate with young Dutch politicians on the future of synthetic biology based on [http://www.rathenau.nl/en/agenda/meetings/meeting-of-young-minds.html?tx_tferathenau_meeting_controller%5BsubPage%5D=820&cHash=a26dd1b016e4ea51a8b87719626fd791 techno-moral vignettes] developed by the Rathenau Instituut in cooperation with [http://www.fdcw.unimaas.nl/staff/default.asp?id=404 Tsjalling Swierstra] and [http://www.utwente.nl/gw/wijsb/organization/boenink/ Marianne Boenink]. The Rathenau Instituut supports the political youth organizations with opportunities and information to prepare for the debate. The programme we used can be found below.