On December 13, 2011, this forum convened local academics, industry members, business community members, and Siebel Scholars to encourage greater interaction across the San Francisco Bay Area synthetic biology community, and to facilitate connections with the Siebel Scholars. The forum introduced the forms of practice that Synthetic Biology takes within Bay Area academic and industrial organizations, and touched on the technical, economic, and social challenges to pursuing synthetic biology in the Bay Area and abroad.