International Symposium Opto Osaka 2015 held

On Wednesday, January 14, the Institute for Academic Initiatives' International Symposium " Opto Osaka 2015 " was held at Congrès Convention Center, Knowledge Capital, Grand Front OSAKA.
Following "Opt Osaka 2014" in Tokyo, the kickoff symposium held in March last year, the theme for this this year's symposium was " Discussing the front-line and future of photonics from a global viewpoint ." The symposium was successfully held with some 400 people, including world-class researchers, in attendance.
The symposium opened with greetings from HIRANO Toshio (President, Director, Institute for Academic Initiatives), KAWAKAMI Nobuaki (Director, Science and Technology Policy Bureau, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology), MATSUSHITA Masayuki (Representative Director and Vice Chairman, Panasonic Corporation), and KYUMA Kazuo (Member, Council for Science, Technology and Innovation). Following these greetings, KODAMA Ryousuke (Head, Division of Photon, Institute for Academic Initiatives Science and Technology, Osaka University) introduced the divisions of the institute.
Following that, speeches were delivered by three professors: Sir John Pendry (Imperial College London), famous for his meta-material research, Tomas Baer (Stanford University, Chairperson, The National Photonics Initiative), and KAWATA Satoshi (Director, Photonics Center, Osaka University), well-known in nanophotonics research. A poster session by 100 labs at OU was also held at the venue and participants eagerly viewed the posters.
The United Nations has designated this year as the "Year of Light and Light-based Technologies" ( IYL2015 ). This symposium was very meaningful for Osaka University, one of the top opto-science universities.

President Toshio Hirano	Sir John Pendry
Chairperson Tomas Baer	Director Satoshi Kawata

Attendees view posters on display