In planning the HOPE Meeting, the question was asked how to achieve the most intensive exchange among participants in the short period of time allotted. The answer we came up with was to have them focus on tackling one issue. For this purpose, the first HOPE Meeting divided the participants into 10 issue-specific groups, each comprising members of various nationalities, languages and graduate-course majors. Each group was given the assignment of delivering a “group presentation” on its discussion results at a general meeting to be held on the third day. From the first day, the participants were already somewhat familiar with the members of their group, as they had introduced themselves to each other via email beforehand. They spent time together throughout the duration of the HOPE Meeting and often stayed up late at night to maximize the time available to them in winding up their discussions and preparing for their presentations.

　In the general meeting, the students stood in front of the Nobel laureates and their peers to deliver their presentations, which included their views on potentialities and challenges relative to nanotechnologies from their various group perspectives, along with comments on what they had gained from their participation in the meeting and how they intended to go about applying it in the future. In the Q&A periods following their presentations, the participants were at times bombarded with questions, occasionally finding themselves at a loss for words in trying to respond; but, that included, the experience they gained was highly valued as a precious opportunity by the young researchers.

In preparing and delivering their group presentations, the participants —who hailing from diverse backgrounds worked together on one issue— were able to experience achieving a mutual objective via a process of learning and respecting each other’s cultural and value differences. This experience helped to prepare the students to play active international roles as their careers unfold. They are also expected to seed the cultivation of a budding S&T community within Asia-Pacific region.