Sakura Science High-School Program

This year five of our Year 11 IBDP students – Shubhangi Dutta, Samar Khanna, Trisha Thacker, Sehaj Chawla and Niharika Dighe – were selected to represent India at the Sakura Science High-School Program organised by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST). They were invited to Japan to participate in a fully sponsored, special invitation program designed for Asian high school students under the framework of Japan-Asia Youth Exchange Program in Science.



Along with their supervisor, Mr. Barry Phipps, the students were given the unique opportunity to not only visit state-of-the-art Japanese science and technology facilities and universities (like JAMSTEC and Tokyo University of Science) but also interact with outstanding scientists and Nobel Laureates like Dr. Toshihide Maskawa and Dr. Hideki Shirakawa.

Trisha and Samar were chosen to perform a hands-on experiment alongside Dr. Shirakawa and worked on making conductive polymers. Shubhangi was selected to be the ambassador of India in a conference with the Japanese minister of education to discuss the future of education and research in the world.

“We made many new friends and our interactions with the Japanese students were quite enlightening.” - Sehaj

“We made many new friends and our interactions with the Japanese students were quite enlightening.” - Sehaj

“It was a truly delightful experience. We all learnt so much from our visit to the science facilities, especially about on-going deep-sea research at JAMSTEC.” - Shubhangi