Bio Interest Group (BIG)

WIRED Bio Interest Group (BIG) 

WIRED BIG is an informal and primarily virtual resource sharing group of WIRED regional representatives. Participation in WIRED BIG is open to bioscience / biotechnology / life science interested staff and consulatants of any of the Gen 1, 2, 3 WIRED regions and other bio-interested DOL/ETA project areas.

A hastily assembled group of 14 individuals met for lunch at the Kansas City Area Life Science Instittute  office on July 18th, just before the start of the Workforce Innocations Conference of July 17-19. In this short meeting, participants had time to introduce themselves and talk briefly about their programs.

The proposed WIRED BIG is a special interest group within WIRED which can explore a number of ways to exchange information (conference calls, e-mail, video conferencing) to discuss experience and exchange information related to buiscience. WIRED BIG can also meet around future WIRED Academy meeetings, perhaps as a half or full day pre-conference. In any event, WIRED BIG can explore a number of ways of sharing the practical experience of all out regional research and implementations.

BIG Ideas

What WIRED BIG is and what it can try to accomplish will be determined by its participants. Some ideas for preliminary discussion are:

• Shared resource development; for example shared development of career ladder information for engineering specialties in the biosciences;
• Periodic online or phone conferences to discuss topics of shared interest, such as improving economic development collaborations between higher education campuses and industry;
• Sharing examples of programmatic activity funded via WIRED grant dollars and recommendations from experiences of early WIRED regions (in terms of "do this, don't do that") to second and third generation WIRED regions.
• Sharing of interesting findings or observations (and the mechanics of 'promising practices') among all WIRED regions;
• Defining bio-interest meeting content for future WIRED Academies and conferences;
• Sharing metrics being used in similar individual bio-projects witha an eye toward using common metrics for similar projects;
• Serving as a problem solving forum for multi-brain resolution of particularly vexing issues;'
• Considering the sharing of region specific asset maps to develop a multi-functional resource for all BIG participants. 

Contact

WIRED BIG's first get-together in Kansas City was initiated by Jerry McCarthy, the Bioscience Industry Coordinator for the Metro Denver WIRED Initiative, working with Dr Keith Gary, Director of Program Development at the Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute, who hosted the luncheon meeting.

WIRED BIG has been holding monthly phone conferences along with member to member contact via site visits, phone calls, and e-mail.

A Common workspace (CWS) is under development at http://bioscienceregions.net.

To join BIG, call or e-mail and send any questions and comments to:

Jerry McCarthy

Bioscience Industry Coordinator

Denver Metro WIRED

jerome.mccarthy@metrodenver.org

303-620-8075

720-250-7772 (cell)