This week’s meeting of the Asia Pacific Chapter of the ATBC, held in Bandar Aceh, Indonesia was inspiring. A wide range of different talks and posters were presented by participants working in diverse fields across South East Asia. Meetings like this give you a chance to meet up with old friends, learn about exciting new projects and foster new collaborations. As such, it was the ideal place to launch the BEFTA Project, which was presented in one of the sessions (see ATBC March 2013 FOSTER). Meetings like this facilitate more collaboration between researchers in different but related disciplines, maximizing the coordination and impact of research.