IndiaBioscience
Activity in 2017
2017
Communicating science out of the lab
Euraxess India organised an event on ‘Communicating science out of the lab’ at Anna University in Chennai on 11th of November 2017.
This event gave an opportunity for the finalists of the Euraxess Science Slam India 2017 to hone their communication skills and doubled up as a workshop for participants to learn better communication skills. The program included talks by Ainhitze Bravo from Euraxess about educational and research opportunities in Europe, followed by Arnab Bhattacharya from TIFR, who gave spoke about chai and why, a science outreach effort he undertakes. He also gave students practical tips on presentations, posters and scientific writing.
IndiaBioscience helped organise a talk by Leslee Lazar of IIT Gandhinagar- one of IBS’ freelance contributors- at the Chennai event. He talked about designing visuals for communicating scientific research.
Open Access Week at IISc
The DST Centre for Policy Research (DST – CPR) organised an Open Access Week at IISc from 23rd October 2017 to 27th October 2017. The centre was joined by the student’s council at IISc, Centre for Contemporary Studies, JRD Tata Library and IndiaBioscience in organising the event.
A quiz competition, a poster competition and a panel discussion were organised as part of the week-long activity.The panel discussion focussed on Institutional policies to promote open access. A detailed report on the panel discussion can be found on the IndiaBioscience website, here.
Webinar for NIH Postdocs on Career Opportunities in India
The postdoctoral office is a part of the Office of Intramural Training and Education at the National Institutes of Health, USA, that has a large population of postdoctoral fellows (about 3500). 60% of these fellows are from other countries. Many of them are in the process of making important career decisions and are looking for positions in biomedical research all over the globe.
Though India is an attractive destination for biomedical research, most of the NIH postdocs appear to be unaware about the plethora of options available here. To fill this need gap, the Office of Intramural Training and Education at the National Institutes of Health, USA with the help of IndiaBioscience organised a webinar that highlighted India as a place to seek opportunities in biomedical research.
The webinar saw enthusiastic participation from the postdoc community at NIH 29 postdocs attended the event in person and approximately 29 joined from all over the US via internet.
Nitin Gupta, who is an associate professor at Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and an NIH alumnus, spoke to the audience about his career trajectory and journey back home in India from NIH. He spoke about the how one needs to plan the move back and what it takes to settle down and start being productive. He also gave a vivid picture of things that are easy in India and the challenges that exist here.
LS Shashidhara from IISER Pune, spoke about Science, Technology and Innovation in 21st century in India. He emphasized that now is the right time to be back in India to address the numerous challenges that the Indian society is facing – this will not only give the researchers a niche problem to work on but will also benefit the society at large in the long run. He also spoke about the various schemes, funding opportunities and programs being run by Government of India that are helpful for researchers and educators.
The question and answer session towards the end saw numerous queries that were answered by LS Shashidhara and Nitin Gupta.
Science Administration and Management Workshop for Women in Science 2017 – 18
IndiaBioscience attended Science Administration and Management Workshop for Women in Science 2017 – 18 from 18 – 21 Sep, 2017 at IISER, Pune.
The whole objective of the workshop is to generate avenues to retain trained woman power in Science.
Smita Jain from IndiaBioscience was part of panel discussion on Synergy among Academia, Admin & Grants for working in science: roles and challenges on 18 Sep, 2017. Click here for more information.
Careers In Science
IndiaBioscience organised “Careers in Science” workshop in association with Biological Science Department, IISc on 8 September, 2017. This workshop created an awareness about the various career options available to Masters and PhD level students in biological sciences. A life in academia has always been thought of as the obvious choice for science graduates.
DBT secretary K. Vijay Raghavan also addressed the workshop audience via skype. He emphasized on the need to look beyond traditional career options in science
The speakers came from variety of backgrounds including Entrepreneurs, IP experts, sales and marketing professionals and those involved with HR specifically in sciences. The list of speakers is below:
- Tinto rang — the journey from lab to customers:Fathima Benazir, Cofounder and CEO, Azooka Life Sciences
- Intellectual Property, Technology Transfer and Law: Lipika Sahoo, Founder and CEO, LifeIntelect
- Path Ahead – Science and Market together:Rajesh Nair, CEO, Basil Biosolutions
- Bridging the Gap — Roadmap to a smooth transition: Shyam Suryanarayan, Founder and CEO, C:\Drive
- Changing tracks: An unconventional route beyond the lab to integrate people, processes and platforms to accelerate healthcare solutions for the next billion: Swati Subodh, Cofounder, 1M1B Foundation
- Do you fancy the journey to take science towards its application: Taslimarif Saiyed, CEO, C‑CAMP
IndiaBiosciece was not only instrumental in arranging this line up of speakers but also took care of the other organizational details.
Through this workshop, we brought students face-to-face with people who have successfully carved a niche for themselves outside of academia. The workshop generated a lot of positive feedback from the participating students.
The detailed report on the workshop can be found here. Pictures from the event can be found here.
For more details click here.
7th Conclave of Ramalingaswami Fellows
“Ramalingaswami Re-entry Fellowship” a re-entry scheme of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India aims to attract highly skilled researchers (Indian nationals) working overseas in various cutting edge disciplines of biotechnology, by providing them an attractive avenue to pursue their R&D interests in Indian institutions. This is a senior fellowship programme. As part of a regular evaluation on their performance, a bi-annual conclave is organised in different parts of the country. The 7th Conclave of Ramalingaswami Fellows was hosted by Institute of Bio-resources and Sustainable Development (IBSD) at Imphal, Manipur from 28th-31st August 2017. This was the first time that this conclave was organized in any North-eastern state. It was attended by about 200 fellows who presented their work.
Smita Jain from IndiaBioscience was invited to deliver a talk about the IndiaBioscience program to bring awareness among the fellows and to showcase how fellows can utilize the website and the network of IndiaBioscience for their benefit. There was ample opportunity to network with the fellows and IndiaBioscience program was much appreciated by most many.
Biennial Meeting of the Indian Society for Developmental Biologists (InSDB)
IndiaBioscience set up a stall at the Biennial Meeting of the Indian Society for Developmental Biologists at IISER, Pune between 24 – 27 June 2017.
Reeteka Sud and Manjula Harikrishna represented IndiaBioscience at the meeting. It was a great opportunity for us to interact with the participants and the members of InSDB. There were almost 245 people present for the meeting. The interaction helped us understand the needs of scientific community and share with them ways of engaging with our platform. We were able to show to the participants the various news articles, grants, events and jobs listed on our website. The meeting helped us create a buzz about our website among the audience. Hopefully, this will help us take IndiaBioscience to more people.
Young Scientist Networking Meeting 2017
IndiaBioscience is co-organising the Young Scientist Networking Meeting (YSN) 2017 between 24 — 25 April 2017 in CRG Barcelona, Spain. The meeting schedule and a list of speakers can be found here.
YIM 2017
YIM 2017 was held between 6 – 10 March 2017 at Goa. Read interviews with organisers, participants and mentors. Watch this space for updates about photos and videos from the Meeting.
Science Communication Workshop: Tangled Bank‑2
IndiaBioscience conducted a science communication workshop “Communicating science through popular media” in the second edition of Tangled Bank, a symposium organised by the students of NCBS’ Ecology and Evolution labs.