#OPENBIOTECH

#OPENBIOTECH VLOG #4: is biohacking big business?
Welcome back at a new episode of #OPENBIOTECH. It must be clear by now that I’m lobbying in Europe for the biohacker movement.
Most of you might think that I want more support and therefore more EUROS from the European Commission for the DIY biohacking community. That’s not necessarily true. I also want to investigate an alternative scenario: what if the European Commission just takes care of all the regulations and all biohackers will take care of their own money? How would that work out?
In this vlog I will interview biohack entrepreneur Federico Muffatto. He co-founded a micro-fluidics company called DigiBio. And I also have a chat with the programma manager of RebelBio, a specialized biotech start up accelerator.
More info? Go to:
rebelbio.co
digi.bio

[@luuuucy]

Yes - the DIYbio movement still needs funding from the EU commission.
I think what Federico said is important - policy recommendations can't loose sight of the wider benefits of DIYbio. It's great that DIYbio is a breeding ground for innovation, and that should be supported, BUT commercialisation of science is not its only value to society. If citizen science and DIYbio is supposed to be about democratising science we shouldn't focus on supporting commercial innovation without also supporting cultural and civic projects that will never turn a financial profit. That kind of gentrification of DIYbio would really limit the movement.

[@franquero4615]

I agree with you but i think that maybe are forms of democratising the science in the private way, maybe with foundations or non-profit associations that earn money in some cases but can help the society making free and/or open projects (with the money earned by the "business" activity). I think that the future are a mix of private and open projects like Arduino or something in the same line.
I only have 21 years, and no experience with that, is only a unsubstantiated opinion ¿What do you think? ¿You think that we could find in the future a nice mix of commercial and democratic DIYbio?

[@luuuucy]

Well put. I think in reality that kind of private-company-with-a-non-profit-arm could be a good part of the mix.. There are certainly art collectives that survive that way - doing commercial projects to make money to support personal creative work. You can also think about parallels with the design of open source business models.
But I don't think it negates the argument for public support that doesn't only focus on commercial innovation.

[@MikeFreesinger]

Can an individual actually just grow and harvest antibiotics at home in a private lab ???