Two graduates of Ichinoseki #1 High School, Hironobu Asari and Ryota Konno, visited with Hon. Masahiko Shibayama (Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) to submit 5,664 signatures they had collected from people who support the ILC.

Mr. Asari (studying at Iwate Medical University) said, “I would like you to bring the ILC to fruition, and link that to the development of Iwate’s economy and academia.” Mr. Konno, a student at the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Iwate University, said, “As someone who is studying physics, I think that the ILC is an extremely important project. I would love to research at the ILC.”

Hon. Shibayama said, “I will receive this as an important sign of the great interest in the ILC (from the local area).”

The two students started collected signatures during their third year of high school as a way to help the ILC effort in some way. Over the past two years, they asked for signatures from schools in Ichinoseki, Oshu, Kitakami, and other cities, and also traveled to shopping centers to ask residents as well.