The prelude for the European campaign entitled Light in the 21st century proved to be an enormous success drawing large crowds. More than 1,600 students, ranging in age from 6-19, signed up for the exhibition “Fascination of Light” in the conference venue and science center Urania in Berlin, Germany. All of the dates for the exhibition were entirely booked. The interactive exhibition, which is being hosted by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, was displayed in Berlin until the 1st of June and then departed on a tour around eight other major European cities until spring 2008.

“Fascination of Light” is a component of a highly invested campaign, which had its uprising a couple of years ago in Germany. Today, with the help of subsidies provided by the European Union, the program has become a European-wide comprehensive initiative. The exhibit has centred its attention on students as well as on the general public. In turn it has sparked the fascination of all mediums of light and their sheer unlimited possibilities in technology, engineering, medicine, and environment; and has brought about applicable examples and experiments that we can use in our everyday lives.

At the inaugural exhibition the emphasis of the campaign organizers was to outline the central roll of light and optical technologies within our daily lives, the technical advancements that have taken place to date, and the scientific developments that have been achieved in Europe. Dr. Bernd Schulte from AIXTRON elucidated that his company has globally established a leading role in the construction of production facilities for laser building elements. Germany has a competitive edge in this area, and must therefore make use of this leading role. Dr. Schulte is the president of the “European Photonics Industry Consortium” (EPIC) and vice president of the European technological platform “Photonics21”.

Professor Hugo Thienpont from the Free University of Brussels, co-ordinator of the Network of Excellence in Micro-Optics (NEMO), introduced the activities of this European network in the area of scholarly advancements. As a result parents and teachers will be able to order experimenter sets, and later with their children and students respectively, they will all be able to collectively learn about micro-optics and lasers. The experimenter sets will be available free of charge, and teachers will have the option of ordering them in class-size amounts from the website at www.micro-optics.org (under the News heading).

Later, Dr. Eckhardt Heybrock from the VDI-Technology Centre in Düsseldorf, the developer and the German co-ordinator of the exhibit “Fascination of Light” clarified the multidisciplinary approach of the show. Dr. Heybrock spoke about the enormous market potential that optical technologies may exemplify, apparent within illumination technology, product engineering, and optical telecommunication.

Organizers who have presently begun the European campaign about the “Fascination of Light” are the partners of the European Consortium for Large Scale Laser Research Facilities (LASERLAB EUROPE) co-ordinated by Professor Wolfgang Sandner, Director at Berlin’s Max-Born Institute. Lasers are playing a pivotal role in bringing about the recent developments within optical technologies.