PRIME CAFÉ-PLUS 2025

A unique mentorship-driven educational program for building presentation skills of young science students was initiated by AIST, Japan in 2022. Called CAFÉ-PLUS (Classroom for Advanced & Frontier Education - Presentation Learning for Young Students), this year it enrolled 53 contestants internationally and a team of 20 mentors (from AIST and other institutes in Japan, India, Indonesia and Korea). Twenty-nine selected contestants were trained by mentors (1:1) for successive 3 rounds involving presentations on topics geared for different audiences (including funding agencies, Industry collaborations and high-school students). Competition of online presentations and on-spot evaluations through which 29, 12, 8 contestants were promoted to next rounds were marked by motivation, energy, positivity and networking.