I CAST 2009 Seoul -Third International Student Conference Held at Kumamoto University
The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science implemented the Program for Enhancing Systematic Education in Graduate Schools. The Graduate School Action Scheme for Internationalization of University Students is one of the schemes which was submitted by Kumamoto University’s researchers and adopted in 2007. To promote the goals of this scheme, the International Student Conference has been held annually since 2008.
The First and the Second International Student Conferences were co-hosted with Peking University in 2008. The Third International Student Conference - I CAST (Advanced Science and Technology) Seoul 2009 was organized and sponsored by the Graduate School of Science of Kumamoto University together with Ewha Women’s University, Ewha Campus Complex on December 11 and 12, 2009.
89 people from Kumamoto University and 67 people from the other universities attended the conference. Participants included students from Seoul National University, the University of Seoul, Seoul Women's University, KAIST, Sungkyunkwan University, Ege University, Sichuan University and ITS. The students presented the results of their research in either oral or poster presentation format. After the presentations were finished, discussions were held. On the first day, keynote lectures and oral presentations were held and on the second day oral presentations and poster sessions were held. After the conference ended on the first day, a casual gathering for the participants was organized to deepen exchanges between the students.
To foster world-class engineers and researchers, the Graduate School of Science in Kumamoto University encourages and supports their student’s participation in projects and workshops held aboard. With this conference as a starting point, the students are then expected to participate in various kinds of academic activities held outside of Japan. This international participation is a key to promoting globalization within the university. Next year, Kumamoto University will organize the Forth International Student Conference aiming to further the development of internationalization within the university.
