20180725 Board Meeting

Agenda of the Board Meeting

Date: Wednesday, July 25th, 18.30-19.30pm
Place: UniverCité, 3rd floor meeting room (MC)

Everyone is again invited to this Board Meeting, as these are such exciting times!

Chair

• Rachel

Present

• Luc
• Gustavo
• Sam
• Olivier
• Masoud
• Gianpaolo
• Juliette Lemaignen

Excused

• Anne-Laure
• Vanessa

Hello

(Rachel, 1 min)

Public minutes

(Rachel, 1 min)

Get ok from all board members to upload minutes on wiki (or else discuss alternative below)
Objections? none

Who can keep the time?

• Luc

Items

Point 1: Visit for inspection of the P1 laboratory

(Rachel, 10min)
After almost a year with an 'official' P1 lab, and not so many real cloning experiments, we recently got a note from Olivier Gianina, chef de projet, Direction Générale de l’Environnement (DGE). Ursula Jenal, a biosafety consultant with the mandate to control biosafety labs, will come visit Hackuarium on the morning of 4sept2018 to inspect our P1 lab.
We may learn more soon, but in the meantime, the lab needs to be more than just tidied.
Some broken things, like the temperature gauge of the autoclave, which Gustavo plans to make digital already, need to be fixed; while others, like the crazy shaker, should be put out to pasture.
Some decisions about our SOP also should be revisited. (waste disposal for instance)
We simply have to ask everyone to make sure they do their bit, for instance labelling their work and cultures, tidying after themselves, and not just letting things rot...
Certainly the frig and freezers will be sorted out more soon!
Anyone is welcome to come and help, as general cleaning and tidying will also be good, and 'many hands make light work' !
Thanks in advance!

Point 2a: Update on the relationship with Inartis

(Juliette Lemaignen, 10min)

Juliette expose son soucis de rentabilité du 2ème étage. Equipements utilisés par des locataires des Ateliers. Deux espaces non-productifs (makerspace et labo pro).

The makerspace needs to be professionalised and will fulfil a mission different from that of Octanis and Hackuarium.

Juliette will make 3 propositions:

• rent for Hackuarium as it is.
• rent for Octanis + Hackuarium in the labo pro
• rent of space in the Makerspace for Octanis + Hackuarium

2 weeks to decide, extraordinary meeting on August 8th to decide the final choice

Point 2b: Informal update on the relationship with Inartis

(In case Juliette could not join: Gustavo, 10min)

Juliette came by last Friday, 20 July, to tell us that she was tired of losing money every month and that the Swiss Motion (prosthetic group) would be moving into Hackuarium. Thus, we needed to make plans for another move.
After last month's discussion, this was a bit of a surprise...
Question from Luc: what discussion are we talking about here? A: ...

There was some discussion that the laboratory currently used by Hackuarium is not suitable for that group (which has no need for water and already uses some of our equipment), and Gustavo asked what we would need to pay as rent to sort the whole thing out. Sam made a striking call, asking for the amount owed each month, that she says she pays for our space etc (about 2400chf), and said we can do it together...

Juliette promised to provide two possible options for us to rent and/or move by this Monday, 23July.
As of 19h 24july, we still have no proposition to discuss.

We also will continue to work on plans toward a more sustainable Hackuarium.
Sam might have some words to add in that regard.

Point 3: GOSH2018

(Rachel, 5min)

Rachel was offered a stipend of 750USD for the travel to Shenzhen next October for GOSH2018. This stipend be used to cover visa and travel costs, not accommodation.
However, Sam, who registered as an Octanis member, was not offered a stipend
(when RA first looked, the round trip flight was about 1000 chf...)

Question:
Can Hackuarium provide support for accommodation for Rachel and in general for Sam? (see point 4b below)

Answer:
Luc: I support a proposal by Sam to cover his trip (similar to the stipend offered by GOSH), but I would not support the full fare for everyone as I believe it's fair enough that one invest a little bit of one owns money in such a trip.

Point 3b: Minigrant Proposal

Sam: I would like to request a minigrant from the board of 850 CHF to pay for flight costs to present and discuss my work and engagement in the open communities I am involved in at GOSH 2018. While I was accepted to the conference after application, I did not receive a travel stipend. I have tried to contact different EPFL positions, asking for help, but have not had any success. I do not have the means to pay for the trip myself and to be honest, I don't feel comfortable requesting this minigrant to do so either. I put this here to have as I would like a discussion.

Good news from a few minutes ago! GOSH found money and is paying 700 USD.

Point 4: LemanMake 2018

(Luc, 5min)

This will be a really fun event, the weekend of 29/30sept in Renens centre!
As far as is known, there will be three tables:

• Hackuarium
• Spectro (LucP) -> will likely be going to CPH for the Maker Fair
• BeeMoS (Olivier)

Luc asks: How about Octanis? Sam: we asked for a table yesterday. How can we make sure that we are next to each other?

Rachel has written the organisers to tell them there can be a Hackuarium workshop each day (20 participants x2) to make o-Foldscopes, the 'oldschool' version of the Foldscope we have used in previous workshops. Michael Jaussi confirms that it will be good, and says we should wait for the web page updates to advertise these as a special event too (i.e. in fb). They will have a system in place to sign people up and buy tickets.

We need to provide promotional material at our Hackuarium table.

• flyers -> to make
• stickers -> we have
• totebags -> will count how many are left over from crowdfunding.
• computer on the table to sign up to the newsletter, and maybe for a future run of T-shirts, if we can't make some soon.
  

Questions:
What should we charge for the workshops (10 CHF)? A: 10 CHF online booking, 15 CHF on the spot
Who can take care of looking into possibilities for t-shirts? A: No, or sign up for future workshops
Should we sell remaining totebags for some limited price (10 CHF)? A: Yes
Can someone put together a flyer?
A: Rachel will ask Vanessa
Should we allocate a budget (for the foldscopes, it was already approved, maybe for t-shirts)? A: potentially for printing flyers, paper and laser cutting for the fold scope

Point 5: Other future Events

26 September 2018 - A special presentation on DNA damage detection, by Delphine Plaire is proposed. Ok for all? A: YES

Any other events?

BeerBecoded has two events lined up in external places. Gianpaolo will look for help.

Point 6: New Interns

(Rachel 2min)

Two interns, Ismaël and Lucie, are working on the spectro project with Luc P.
One intern, Clara, will be working 15.08-15.09 on BeeMos with joint supervision by Olivier and Luc P.
Thanks to our friend Matthieu at Micropat (in our old 1st floor lab space), we have a pH electrode that works for their experiments.

Three new interns from the epfl, Violaine, Jennifer, and Vithooban (Vithoo), are working on genomic integrity projects and more at the lab over the next 8 weeks. Some of you already know Violane (for instance, from the microfluidics workshop).
As their first experiment today, they confirmed (also with me) the bioluminescence of two V. fischerii cultures brought to the lab by the Nyon students, who want to make a bioluminescent mosaic for their travail de maturité .
If we are very lucky, a prototype of the cheek cell chip may be developed before this team of three talented epfl students are finished in the end of september!
Please make them welcome!

Point 7: Other Business

Question 1) Should Hackuarium register in this Citizen Science network, to help perhaps for funding possibilities, and maybe even a better world?
A: YES

Announcement 2) Round two of the urban garden project has begun, with cells already germinating on paper towels and inoculations planned for today!

Question 3)

As announced at the last General Assembly, Luc is leaving the board on August 1st. He will however retain access to the bank account, while Masoud will replace him as Treasurer and will take on the responsibilities and access of Anna to take care of the finances.

Olivier is officially designated as the 'shadow secretary' right now. Does the board validate these changes?

A: YES

Question 4) Any other people want to join the board?
A: NO

The committee is now officially composed of the following people:

• President: Rachel Aronoff (also Citizen Science coordinator and Biosafety Officer)
• Lab Manager: Gustavo Santamaria
• Treasurer: Masoud Alipour
• Deputy Biosafety Officer and Communications Coordinator, and Shadow Secretary: Olivier Emery
• Art and Science coordinator: Vanessa Lorenzo
• System Administrator: Sam Sulaimanov
• Talent scout and evangelist for Academy: Anne-Laure Pittet
• Talent scout and evangelist for Entrepreneurs: Gianpaolo Rando

Question 5) Move Rachel's stuff from coworkers space
A: YES