The Hanamaki Chamber of Commerce hosted a seminar on the ILC at a city hotel, where members learned more about the significance of the ILC and its current progress.

Around 120 people were in attendance, including representatives from businesses and local government. Prof. Masakazu Yoshioka is a visiting professor at Tohoku and Iwate Universities, as well as an honorary professor at Japan’s High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK, in Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture). He gave a seminar entitled, “Predictions on hosting the ILC, and small and medium enterprises getting involved with the project.”

Prof. Yoshioka said the following about the ILC site:
▽There will be around 2,000 highly-skilled researchers/engineers/technicians within the ILC organization, and over 10,000 researchers from around the world will come to the area for medium- to long-period stays. Fans of Japanese hot springs and wine aficionados could possibly live in Hanamaki (which is rich in both of those things).
▽Once the facility is created, the area will become a hub for the region, and a place where advanced scientific research is always taking place. The ILC won’t be a ten-year project – it will have a long life, with a scale of 50 years or more.

Regarding the entry of SMEs into the accelerator industry: “There are a lot of companies in Tohoku that are technologically advanced. That will open the way to innovation. Bringing the ILC to the area will be a chance for us to develop a new industrial framework that makes use of Tohoku’s strengths,” affirmed Prof. Yoshioka.