The history of dyeing is incredibly ancient. Our ancesters used natural dyes from plants, animals, and minerals. While modern dyeing industries have significantly improved efficiency and variety, they’ve also caused serious environmental pollution and resource waste. The textile industry produces around 70 billion tons of toxic wastewater annually, with at least 50% of it being wasted. Much of this dye-filled wastewater is discharged without proper treatment, sometimes even used directly for farmland irrigation, leading to major environmental damage.

We were inspired by China's traditional tie-dye culture, a part of intangible cultural heritage. Culture has drawn our attention to this interesting area, but also to the harm done to the environment by the dyeing industry.In Chromobacterium violaceum, we discovered a unique pigment called violacein. It’s slightly soluble in water, highly stable, and can be used for textile dyeing. Fabrics dyed with violacein also have some antibacterial properties. Plus, violacein is a naturally occurring compound that doesn’t negatively impact ecosystems, and it's widely used in fields like agriculture and food processing. This led us to adopt it as our dye, and thus "Neovio Dye" was born, representing the future of violacein dyeing.

Neovio Dye emerged during a brainstorming session where we aimed to recreate the same effects of traditional tie-dyeing through synthetic biology. Our goal was to pass down this cultural heritage in a new way, while also minimize environmental pollution. Initially, we tried to mimic the movements of tie-dye artisans with motion-capture technology and recreate the process through hardware. After several iterations, Neovio Dye evolved from traditional tie-dye, incorporating memory and random patterns to achieve effects similar to modern digital printing, but in a much more fun and creative way.

From the very beginning, our team reached a consensus that we should listen to the world and not work hard with our eyes covered. At first, we were not sure which stakeholders to contact, deliberate contact would make the dialogue become a single output. After we had the initial idea, with the progress of the project, we encountered many problems in theory, experiment, ethics, practice and other aspects, and we were curious about the potential impact of each change in the project. At this point, it became clear who to contact, and we believe that such contacts can successfully optimize the project and benefit both parties.

According to the natural chronological order, we divided the intergrated human practice activities into project design, experiment stage and keep in touch. in the keep in touch stage, our competition stage has come to an end, but the story of Neovio Dye will not end. At this stage, we are still actively contacting stakeholders, exploring the social responsibility and cultural mission of the project, and making the final sprint for the experiment.

After each phase we had a big Gibbs review to make the next phase more smooth, and the cycle ran three times in total. The Gibbs reflective cycle was developed by Graham Gibbs in 1988 to provide knots for learning from experience, and it is ideally suited to our ongoing learning experience as we optimize our projects. In the process of Evaluation, it is difficult to analyze the problem clearly by relying on one's own strength. We consider integrating the process of contact with stakeholders into this step, analyzing and solving problems and taking actions through self-analysis and external help, and integrating them into the project.

We always adhere to the people-oriented, while keeping in mind the ethics, all human practice is carried out with the consent of the individual concerned. Due to limited time, resources and funds, it is difficult for us to meet all the requirements, so our projects prioritize certain requirements that meet the values, so that we can provide the best and optimized solutions for our stakeholders, and the values summarized after communication with stakeholders are as follows: