10th Japan-Brazil International Workshop on Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development Held
The University of Campinas and Gifu University hosts this workshop annually, which originated from the first workshop held at University of Campinas (Brazil) in 2003, due to increasing concern about the environment in Japan and Brazil.
This 10th Japan-Brazil International Workshop on Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development was held at Kumamoto University, since the University of Campinas has a department-level exchange agreement with the Faculty of Engineering and Graduate School of Science and Technology of Kumamoto University.
This workshop aimed to strengthen the partnership between Japanese and Brazilian researchers and to contribute to the development of both countries by making presentations and holding discussions mainly on topics such as energy, biomass, environment, and agriculture. Six Brazilian researchers and five Japanese researchers delivered lectures in English, and had an animated discussion.
About 140 on-and off-campus participants such as graduates and researchers including international students joined the workshop.
The workshop was also delivered to Gifu University via teleconference, where 26 graduates of Gifu University joined as part of their classes.
One of the speakers from University of Campinas, Professor Luis Cortez commented, “I could exchange information and have a fruitful discussion with Japanese researchers including the researchers from Kumamoto University through this workshop. Brazil places great importance on Japan for various aspects, including energy, and environment fields, as well as economy and culture. It is also good to try various things in youth, so I hope many Japanese young people visit Brazil where the economy is growing greatly.”
One of the listeners from Graduate School of Science and Technology of Kumamoto University, a foreign visiting researcher Jorge Morel（Paraguay）also commented, “I participated in this workshop because there were the presentations by Brazilian researchers from South America, my home area. I was very interested in the topic of green energy which is related to my research field. In particular, the information about bio-ethanol was very useful for me. There were so many helpful presentations and discussions to study various energy issues, since the current main source of electricity in Paraguay is a hydro-electric generation. Japan also should have more discussions in order to introduce more renewable energy sources like these. I expect that the specific benefit will be brought into both countries by strengthening these valuable partnerships, since Japan has excellent science technologies, and Brazil has rich natural resources.”
