BDC 2022 Year in Review

BDC Alumni Updates

Here's where BDC projects headed in 2022:

• AlgiKnit (BDC ‘16) rebranded to Keel Labs and raised $13M to close their Series A

• TômTex (BDC ‘20) founder Uyen Tran was named to the Forbes Vietnam 30 Under 30, featured on Vietnamese National TV for Lunar New Year, named a Hello Tomorrow Deep Tech Pioneer, and raised $1.7M in funding.

• Gabe Tavas (BDC ‘21) was awarded the $10,000 Fiddler Innovation Fellowship for the development of his synthetic wood product called Pyrus

• Werewool (BDC ‘18) was named a winner of the ConservationX Microfiber Innovation Challenge and was featured in “The Future Of" Netflix Show

• Pink Chicken Project (BDC ‘17) was on display at the MIT Museum

• Lixilab (BDC ‘21) was awarded 2nd Prize at Cumulus Green

• Modern Synthesis (BDC ‘17) raised $4.1M from AgFunder

• NanoFreeze (BDC ‘19) was selected as winners of JLabs' BLUE KNIGHT™ QuickFire Challenge

• Tenochtitlan (BDC ‘22) exhibited their project at Tallinn Design Festival

• Alara Ertenü from Izmir University of Economics (BDC ‘22) showed her project PACKIOLI at Dutch Design Week

BDC Programming Recap

New programs, shows, and a book, oh my!

• BDC Summit 2022 was held online and featured projects from 54 schools in 19 countries across four continents

• BDC co-curated a retrospective gallery show in April at Esther Klein Gallery in Philadelphia featuring BDC alumni projects and bioartists/biodesigners from the community

• The 2nd annual Biodesign Sprint ran in October with Mars Wrigley to explore regenerative food systems (see the winning projects)

• We published our first book: Grow the Future: Visions of Biodesign

• We partnered with Cumulus Design Association on a Call for Papers titled Foundations of Biodesign: Integrating Art, Design, and Biology

• In partnership with Newlab, the BDC alumni board hosted the “Business of Biodesign” panel featuring BDC alumni company founders and startup funders

• The BDC alumni board also hosted a virtual speaker series called “Going Interplanetary: Biodesign in Space”

• We joined NEW INC, the New Museum’s coworking community, as anchor members!

• Our media partnership continued with Issues in Science and Technology and we co-published five new BDC project spotlights