Synthetic biology has transformative potential in a variety of application areas including agriculture, energy, materials, and health. While much of the research in this field has been in E. Coli, many applications require yeast and other bacteria. Researchers often use trial-and-error, since information can be difficult to locate. The goal of the Synthetic Biology Knowledge System (SBKS) is to create an an open and integrated resource that harnesses disparate, heterogeneous data sources to accelerate scientific exploration and discovery. This abstract gives an overview of the SBKS project, while several other abstracts submitted to this workshop explain different aspects in more detail.