On 3 & 4 April the first of 3 internal Koelleven workshops takes place at the Lab for Microbiology, An Willems Group, at Ghent University. The aim being to listen to the players of the playfield for a joyful and festive point of departure of the exciting trajectory. Special guests are invited to enrich a number of the outlined pathways. During the hands-on sessions in the lab we share some key aspects of our respective research in bio-solar cells and microbial inquiry, including colour formation by microbes living on asphalt (Emmelie De Ridder). An Willems guides us through the corridors and sliding doors housing the dormant frozen microbes of the Belgian Coordinated Collections of Microorganisms (BCCM), the second largest non-medical collection in Europe.