LTTA5 – Humanities on Ethics of biohacking/biotech/engineering innovation

Ethics, Art, and Entrepreneurship in (bio)technology are the key concepts of this workshop. How artistic research and ethical constraints contribute to the realization of an innovative idea. In this workshop on ethics and entrepreneurship in science technology and arts (STEAM) you will experience how art, technology, and entrepreneurship are interconnected and what is the relevance of ethical issues for assuring sustainable development. Artists question ethical issues in society and entrepreneurs bring these ideas to the people. 

Artists can be critical and rebellious, scientific researchers need to be rigorous and responsible, while businesses want to make money. This poses some interesting conflicts between these social spheres, so we aim to question:

How can one go from a critical artwork, or a scientific result into an impactful business idea that would also consider ethical issues? 

What could be taught to increase the ethical and entrepreneurial approach in academia?

In this workshop, we start by approaching entrepreneurship by getting acquainted with the basics of the entrepreneurial process and management. During the workgroup sessions, we brainstorm and find the business potential of some STEAM projects with the help of experts. We will incorporate the ethical issues into a business concept. We will look at 4 important aspects of a business model according to the Kotler theory of 4 Ps (product, price, placement, and promotion) and how to implement these and design management skills in your budding business. 

Our next focus moves towards the ethical questions regarding artistic projects and biotechnology innovation. We will look at collaborative STEAM projects that challenge the ethical issues of our current society and will explore their implications.

During the program, we will also look at some good practices and learn from their concepts and ideas to apply to a fictional small startup model. After we improve our initial ideas with new information and some exercises to polish them, we will present our thoughts to each other on the final day.

PROGRAM: 

04 APRIL 2022

PART 1: 10.00–13.00, MSUM (Ljubljana)

Opening with Introduction

10.00–10.45 WELCOME & OPENING Assoc. Prof. Dr. Matej Mertik, Prof. Dr. Polona Tratnik, Julio Borlido Santos, Dr. Maria Manuela Lopes

10.45–11.00 introduction of the participants

Multidisciplinary Tech Products based on Design Management

11.00–13.00 LECTURE AND WORKSHOP
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Jordan Berginc, (Faculty of Design) Multidisciplinary Tech Products based on Design Management

Assoc. Prof. Dr Jordan Berginc is an international expert of entrepreneurship, training, consulting and mentorship + 30 years, have proven experiences of different SME’s projects from 12 countries. He is the co-founder of different tech Startups and some business NGOs.
Multidisciplinarity is becoming a trendy model in creating disruptive innovations. When connecting different disciplines, it is important to establish effective internal and external communication, with the support of the design management process through UX. At this stage, it’s important that the leader of the process is developing a holistic approach in jointly developed technology to fully understand its application.
Workshop program: Each team will consist of five participants from different disciplines. Based on proposed idea opportunities, the participants will define and describe the final image of the tech product, define a purpose and value proposition. A Nominal group technique will be used for this purpose. In the end, each team will perform a short pitch of their innovative product.

PART 2: 15.00–17.00, MSUM (Ljubljana)

Start-Up Landscape

15.00–17.00 LECTURE AND WORKSHOP
Peter Merc (Lemur Legal), Start-Up Landscape: Thinking the Right Path

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Peter Merc is a lawyer by profession. He started his career in the banking sector. Afterwards, he established his own legal advisory company Lemur Legal, which specializes in legal support for startups and tech companies. Recently Peter cofounded Suricate Ventures, a micro venture capital fund, which is investing in deep tech startups and scaleups. Peter’s area of expertise is new technologies, fintech and crypto.
Entrepreneurship requires certain skills and knowledge from the entrepreneur. One of the required skills is structured thinking which helps bring business ideas to real products or services ready to be offered to the clients. There are some basic tools that every entrepreneur should know how to use them. Business model canvas and SWOT analysis are two of them. Entrepreneurs should also be aware of various risks to which every business is exposed.
Workshop program: Participants will be divided into groups. In a few case studies from business practice, we will apply some tools which will help us identify key questions every entrepreneur should have answers to when building a business case. Afterwards, some of the biggest risks for startups will be explained using examples from the practice.

05 APRIL 2022

PART 3: 10.00–13.00, MSUM (Ljubljana)

10.00–11.00 Brainstorming: open challenges

Art Thinking as Innovation Driver

11.00–13.00 LECTURE
Jurij Krpan (Kapelica Gallery, Ars Electronica): Art Thinking as Innovation Driver

Jurij Krpan is Artistic Director & Chief Curator Gallery for Contemporary Investigative Art in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Kapelica Gallery has played host to the most important players in the world and has established a trend in the field of Art & Science through art and with works that topicalise human corporeality.
In more than 25 years of an art production where Kapelica Gallery became synonymous with explicit art investigation and radical artwork production, Kersnikova Institute developed three thematic laboratories where artistic research, development and art production aims to support artists in developing their artwork. With a functional network of scientists, researchers and engineers, Kersnikova laboratory facilities became more and more interesting for innovators from the real sector who are developing new services and products. Implementing our newly developed methodology, creatives working at Kersnikova strives to establish an innovation platform that will inspire and enable a future proof mindset that is necessary for most urgent social change.

13.00–15.00 LUNCH BREAK

PART 4: 15.00–17.00, Cukrarna (Ljubljana)

Returning the Gaze, guided tour through the exhibition

06 APRIL 2022

PART 5: 10.00–13.00, MSUM (Ljubljana)

Ethics and (Bio)Technology

10.00–11.00 LECTURE & DISCUSSION

Maarten Smith and Maro Pabo on how art & design research can be used as tools to investigate the field of biotechnologies. Because of the different perspectives and methodologies compared to the scientific field, these methods give novel perspectives on the ethics of emerging technologies.

11.15–12.30 LECTURE
Miomir Knežević (Remedy Advanced Therapeutics): Ethical Committee for Biotech Research and Art?

Dr Miomir Knežević is the director of Remedy Advanced Therapeutics. He was a founder of several biotech enterprises and was a project officer at the European Commission. Each art and research project has an ethical component, which has to be addressed. In medical and life science research there is an ethical committee, in Slovenia for instance at the Ministry of Health, responsible for the ethical approval of research proposals, especially responsible for the research conducted on humans and animals. The main purpose is to protect the subjects of the research, but it can also influence the decision, of whether the research will be conducted or not. Is there a need to establish an institutionalized board or advisory board for ethical issues in art?

PART 6: 15.00–17.00, MSUM at Metelkova

Outputs

15.00–16.00 OUTPUT 1 – group 1: Lessons learned about ethics and the importance of art and science collaborations for addressing ethical issues

15.00–16.00 OUTPUT 2 – group 2: Lessons of entrepreneurship and sustainable dimensions

15.00–16.00 OUTPUT 3 – group 3: Brainstormed Art & Science Installations in aspects business models perspective (marketing and ….)

16.00–17.00 all groups: discussion about the outputs

17.00 closing of the FIRST PART of the workshop and prospects

07 APRIL 2022

PART 7: 10.00–13.00, MSUM at Metelkova

PART 1 DIT Students’ work in groups CREATIVE MODEL OF A STEAM PROJECT

10.00–10.30 Formation of 3 groups of students of different backgrounds, the mentors.

ASSIGNMENT: define the focus of the group (ethics, entrepreneurship, technology, etc.)

10.30–11.30 ASSIGNMENT 1: examine and select projects and concepts to work on
ASSIGNMENT 2: define the potential challenges, draw the ideas

11.30–12.30 ASSIGNMENT 3: discuss and sketch the OBJECTIVES

12.30–13.00 SHORT PITCHES and RESPONSES

PART 8: 15.00–17.00, MSUM at Metelkova

PART 2 DIT Students’ work in groups CREATIVE MODEL OF A STEAM PROJECT

15.00–15.30 Examination of responses and suggestions

15.30–17.00 ASSIGNMENT 4: define the OBJECTIVES and the potential IMPACT of the project to be built:

• WHAT issues does the project explore
• WHY – define the relevance of the project
• WHO will be addressed
• define the IMPACT – WHAT will the results achieve
  ASSIGNMENT 5:
• define HOW the project will be ORGANIZED, prepare the plan of IMPLEMENTATION and
• DRAW the model of the project
  ASSIGNMENT 6:
• RISK ASSESSMENT and RISK MANAGEMENT
  

08 APRIL 2022

PART 9: 10.00 CET – 13.00 CET, MSUM at Metelkova

PART 3 DIT Students’ work in groups CREATIVE MODEL OF A STEAM PROJECT

10.00–11.00 Groups’ completion of the project and detection of the still open challenges

11.00–12.00 Groups present the results – spokesmen PITCHES WITH DRAWINGS

12.00–12.30 Voting for the best projects in 3 categories:

• best CONCEPT (most original and relevant impact project)
• best IMPLEMENTATION PLAN
• best INTERACTION OF DISCIPLINES

12.30–13.30 Evaluation of work and presentation of the Hybrid lab results

PART 10: Friday afternoon: informal gathering (lunch, museum, art institutions, etc.)

LTTA 7 – Biohacking Academy: Biohacking to outreach

The Learning Teaching, Training Activity 7 / Biohacking Academy: Biohacking to outreach will be a collaborative journey for artists, scientists and enthusiasts. The Hybrid Lab Network will visit the Waag Society of Art, Science and Technology, in Amsterdam during a week of the BioHack Academy.

There, we will learn about cell biology, synthetic biology and micro-biology. We explore the world of bio-engineering, gene-editing and CRISPR-cas9 in particular. With an interdisciplinary group of artists, scientist and ethicists, we can think about how creative practices can help expand our collective thinking and legislation about these topics. 

This LTTA will focus on reaching a different audience by working together in teams of different expertise on speculative stories in a design fiction exercise in order to explore possible futures in a world where genetic engineering is the norm. 

There will be lectures by Howard Bolland on synthetic biology as an artistic practice, Kas Houthuijs will give an introduction on genetic modification practices and Lucas Evers talks about how creative uses of GMO’s can push legislation. Furthermore, we will go into the lab to use the open-source DIY hardware tools of the Waag’s biolab to do genetic modification of E. coli bacteria with Green Fluorescent Proteins ourselves and extract the product of our experiments from these bacteria for future uses. 

The BioHack Academy is a 10-week biotechnology course for this course bio-designers, engineers, scientists, artists, homebrewers and hackers who want to grow their own sustainable biotech materials. The BHA promotes wider access to knowledge and tools outside institutional science and allows for a wider distribution of biotechnological skills. In the BioHack Academy the focus is on learning the basics of biotechnology, working with biomaterials and collaborate on building your own lab equipment. In addition to gathering new knowledge, the BioHack Academy is also about sharing knowledge. All lab equipment manufactured within the BioHack Academy and the recipes are open-source. This means that everyone is completely free to improve the design or recipe, adapt it according to their own preferences and continue experimenting.

PROGRAMME

28 MARCH 2022

10:00 Introduction of the week

10:30 Lecture: Creative GMOs, Lucas Evers

13:30 Lecture: Genetic Modification Basics, Kas Houthuijs

15:00 Workshop: growing GMO’s Pt1, Kas Houthuijs

29 MARCH 2022

10:00 Team Selection + assignment Frank Vloet

11:00 Design Fiction Assignment, Frank Vloet

13:30 Design Fiction Assignment, Frank Vloet

15:30 Workshop: growing GMO’s Pt2, Kas Houthuijs

30 MARCH 2022

10:00 Prototype Presentations Participant, groups

13:30 Guest Lecture: Synthetic Biology as an Artistic Practice, Howard Boland

15:30 Workshop: Protein Isolation Pt 1, Kas Houthuijs

31 MARCH 2022

10:00 Workshop: Protein Isolation Pt 2, Kas Houthuijs

1 ABRIL 2022

10:00 Workshop: Protein Isolation Pt 3, Kas Houthuijs

LTTA 6 – Biohacking Creative Thinking

What skills do researchers need other than scientific?

Nowadays, to be a successful scientist in the modern world, it is needed a deep knowledge of a discipline, mastery of the scientific method, the ability to think critically and solve problems creatively and collaboratively. Creativity is not just a talent, it is also a frame of mind, and creativity can be learnt and improved using particular techniques; is one of the soft skills and is supposed to help develop innovative solutions to problems. The Creativity concept will be discussed and questioned.  Creativity requires an openness to innovation and mental flexibility and should be trained.

Design thinking provides a natural bridge between the arts, sciences, and other subjects. The goal of the workshop is, also, to promote the application of Design Thinking to the research work as a useful method for innovation in science and science education.

There is also a need to train scientists and researchers to develop creative skills (culture, visual literacy, soft skills for communicating their research projects, etc.) as well as visual communication skills, organisation and information design (data, set data visualisation, information visualisation, data visualisation and infographics, visual narratives), etc.

The Workshop:

In this workshop, during 5 days at i3s, participants will attend a systematic interactive training course where they get to practice the mentioned skills with others so they can learn these skills quickly and with long-lasting results.

This Design Thinking Workshop and other creative methodologies will be used as a tool to promote creative thinking in scientists having Biohacking as the subject. In this framework, design thinking presents the knowledge in multidisciplinary strategies, practical methodologies, and development of tools for the research on, in and into science and Higher Education. The LTTA will revisit gene editing (in vivo, in vitro, and in silico) protocols experimented with previous HYBRID activities, in the attempt to successively trim them to expand their multidisciplinary and educational functions.

Besides i3s teachers and researchers, partner institutions in the HYBRID project (Aalto University and Waag) will provide inspirational expert lectures and presentations covering subjects such as Design Thinking, Storytelling and Data Visualization including artistic practices and conceptual questions related to the development of these fields.

Participants:

will range from teachers, and HE students, proposed by each HEI partner institution, to citizens (artists, science communicators, entrepreneurs, etc.), moved by inner motivation. This workshop is designed for different kinds of participants (engineers, scientists, artists, entrepreneurship).

Themes:

1. Revisiting Gene Editing protocols
2. Creative skills in practice; 
3. Design thinking
4. Data visualization 

Workshop Aims:

1. to train Scientists and science students to develop
2. creative skills (culture, visual literacy, soft skills for communicating their research projects, etc.)
3. visual communication skills, organization and information design (data, set data visualization, information visualization, data visualization and infographics, visual narratives), etc.
4. to train Arts and Humanities researchers and students to develop
5. lab skills (namely in molecular biology; microbiology and gene editing in vivo, in vitro, and in silico)
6. scientific thinking/method (hypothesis, experimental design, controlled setups, conclusions drawing)

Expected results:

1. At the end of this course students should be able to apply some creative skills in their practice (culture, visual literacy, soft skills for communication of their research projects, etc.) as well as visual communication, organizational, and information design strategies (illustration data set, information visualization, data visualization, and infographics, visual narratives, story telling), among others;
2. At the end of this course teaching staff and invited teachers should: both gain awareness that it is necessary to rethink the learning/teaching methods and pedagogical approaches, learning spaces, or/and the role of science educators/creative educators at higher education;
3. Hybrid Lab Network staff should collect information and materials to refine the multidisciplinary educational proposals (toolkit and course syllabus), as well as to tune ideas on best practices for transdisciplinary teaching.