A seminar on the ILC called “Thinking about the future of this region” was held at the Ichinoseki #2 High School (Akaogi, Ichinoseki City) on October 30th. There, students discussed their thoughts on how to develop Ichinoseki in preparation for the ILC, a next-generation particle collider to be built in the region.

The candidate site for the ILC is in the Kitakami mountains of Iwate, which are located in Ichinoseki City. The high school and the city government planned this seminar to help develop these students as human resources that could act in a variety of ways to get involved with the ILC. Through a series of three seminars during this fiscal year, the 200 member class of first-year students will think about the future of the region.

During this first seminar, Amanda Wayama of the Office of International Affairs of the Iwate Prefectural Government gave a presentation on the ILC’s mechanisms and role in city development. The students also learned about the various economic effects of the project should it be realized. Following that, the students split into groups to talk about the theme, “How do we see ourselves in Ichinoseki in ten years?”

If the ILC is built, then researchers and their families will come from around the world to live here. Some students predicted that the region would become more lively, and that they would be able to start a company that had something to do with the ILC. Others said that there needed to be support to help foreigners live in the area, and that they needed to work on their English communication skills.

One student, Funa Abe, said, “We need a number of different facilities and systems in order to make this town easy-to-live-in for people of other countries.”

Students will take their talking points to the next session (November 13th) to create a presentation paper on their group’s discussion. They will then present their ideas during the last session (December 4th).