International Workshop on Photonics Polymer for Innovation (IWPPI) was held at Hotel Beniya in Suwa City, Nagano Prefecture during Oct.15th-18th, 2018. Total attendees counted 217 including 32 Invited Speakers, 185 participants).
Yoshimasa Goto, Executive Director of JST addressed the opening remarks in the Opening Session. In the Plenary Session, Prof. Duncan T. Moore of Rochester University and Prof. Nasser Peyghambarian delivered Plenary Talks.
Following the Plenary Session, Technical Sessions and Poster Session were held through the following day on the 16th. New ideas and opinions were actively exchanged by photonics polymer experts from all over the world such as France, USA, Indonesia, Korea, Taiwan, UK, Spain, China, Switzerland, Czech Republic, India and Australia. Furthermore, in the first half of morning session on the 17th, the research leaders and develop-meant leaders of each research group of the S-Innovation program which ends in this fiscal year presented their final results and achievements of Stage I to III and activities towards industrialization.
In the latter half of the morning session on the 17th, the Special Session was held inviting key persons with successful experiences of industry-academia-government cooperation from material manufacturer, final manufacturer, and academia. Mr. William Leggett, Senior Product Manager of Product Design Development Team of Google Inc. presented their activities in hardware development.
In the panel discussion that was held afterwards, Katsuhiko Shirai, Board Member of NTT Corporation (Former President of Waseda University), Toshiyuki Umehara, CTO of Nitto Denko Corporation, and Yukari Kaneko, Mayor of Suwa City joined to discuss the theme "Innovation of Photonics Polymer 〜Material Changes the System〜". Valuable comments and opinions on this theme by panelists were conveyed to the audience.
In addition, 13 organizations of S-Innovation Program exhibited the culmination of research results of 10 years. Five other companies such as DNP, JDI, Nitto Denko Corporation, nittoh Inc. and KT Group exhibited their latest technologies and products.
On Oct. 18th, Special Lectures were held at Suwa City Culture Center as the joint event with the Suwa Area Industrial Messe held from the 18th to 20th. We have invited Mr. Minoru Usui, President of Seiko Epson Corporation, Professor Duncan T. Moore of the University of Rochester, and Professor Akira Fujishima, Foremer President and presently Emeritus Professor of University College of the University of Tokyo, as Special Lecturers who are all active at the forefront of the world. 355 people including students of Suwa Seiryo High School who has been certified as a super science high school by MEXT, IWPPI2018 scientific conference participants and general citizens have participated.
