Question 1

Can individuals who have already graduated from university participate?

Accepted Answer

Yes! If there are enough graduates interested in participating we will make a separate division just for them. If not, we may add a disclaimer to the project letting people know that graduates participated. Any team that has equal or greater than half of their members as graduates may be considered a graduate team.

Question 2

When is the conference?

Accepted Answer

The Gogec virtual conference will take place in February 2023 with the required materials submitted in January 2023. Exact dates will be announced closer to the event.

Question 3

Will there be prizes for the winning teams?

Accepted Answer

No. Unfortunately, we were not able to secure a prize for this year's competition. There will hopefully be prizes in future years.

Question 4

Is there going to be free software or anything else like that to support teams?

Accepted Answer

We are currently in the process of seeking sponsors to provide access to tools for participating teams. Because we are a new conference we don’t yet have any official sponsors, but we hope to have some in the near future! 
 
We also plan to have a page of reccomended free tools and resources for teams to use available soon.

Question 5

Is there an age limit for participants in Gogec?

Accepted Answer

No, we allow synthetic biologists of all ages to participate in Gogec. We may split people based on whether they have graduated undergraduate or not, depending on the number of teams that are participating. If the majority of a team has already graduated undergraduate then it may be considered a graduate level team, but they can still participate in the competition.

Question 6

Does our team’s project need to exactly match what we said it would be when we registered?

Accepted Answer

No, as long as your project is still a synthetic biology project that fulfills the requirements for the competition then you can change it as much as you wish until you submit your visual abstract, report, and video.

Question 7

Is there a limit on the size of a team?

Accepted Answer

No, as long as there are at least 2 members there is no upper limit for team size as long as they are still considered one coherent team.

Question 8

How do I register for Gogec?

Accepted Answer

Fill out this form!
 
https://tally.so/r/m6beom
 
The conference is free to register for and attend, so if you fill out that form you are registered for the conference and you just need to submit the required materials and attend the event!
 
Make sure to register by the deadline of Septermber 10th! Additionally, there are only 25 guaranteed spots for teams, so we reccomend you register sooner rather than later to make sure you get a spot.

Question 9

What if there aren't enough participants to have experimental and computational tracks for both undergraduate and graduate teams?

Accepted Answer

If there aren't enough participating teams in each category to split into 4 tracks, then we will prioritize splitting experimental and computational to create 2 tracks.

Question 10

Our team has a good reason to have a report longer than 10 pages or a good reason why we don't want to make our data public, is there any way we can get out of those requirements?"

Accepted Answer

Yes, if you believe you have a valid reason to be exempt from a certain requirement then contact us with the requirement you would like waived along with a description of why you believe it should be waived for you, then we will evaluate it and grant an exemption if it is necessary.

Question 11

Are high school teams allowed to participate?

Accepted Answer

Yes, we are now allowing high school teams to register for Gogec starting with Gogec 2023! However, we do not have a separate division for high school teams, so a high school team will be competing primarily against undergraduates unless we have many high school teams register.

Additionally, high school teams must register using the high school registration form, not the normal registration form. This form can be found here:

https://tally.so/r/meqgBo(https://tally.so/r/meqgBo)

Question 12

Who are the people behind Gogec?

Accepted Answer

Our organizing team and the people assisting us consists of undergrads, PhD students, postdocs, and faculty from Mexico, Australia, the UK, Denmark, Uganda, and the USA who are linked by our desire to see synbio education and research being made more accessible.

Question 13

Can we submit our project video and report in our native non-English language?

Accepted Answer

We believe in making the results and presentations understandable to as many people as possible, therefore all submitted materials must be in English. We hope that this will allow all teams to discuss their projects with everyone else and facilitate as much inter-team discussion as possible.

Global Open Genetic
Engineering Competition

FAQ

Answers to some of your most pressing questions. Please feel free to reach out if you have a question that isn't addressed here.