Textile Summit 2017

Activity report

From March 17 to 24, 2017, 14 of the program students participated the Research Day and Textile Summit 2017 held at North Carolina State University.
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[Participation report by Duy Nam Phan, 2nd-year student]
The Research Day and the Textile Summit of the US study tour are the chance of a lifetime for me to go to the United States - the land of dreams. And my dream since I was a little boy has become true.
The US study tour comprised of two main events, the Research day mainly for Undergraduate students from the NC State University and the Textile summit which received the involvements from the 4 top worldwide Universities about textile, fiber and fashion design: North Carolina State University, University of Leeds, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Shinshu University.

The Research Day was held in the academic hall in the College of Textiles at NC State University, Raleigh, North Carolina with participants from the industry and students. The Research day launched a dialogue, learn, showcase and establish networks and collaborations with all personnel involved in textiles. On the date of the event, We arrived at the NC State University at 9 am and went through the registration process, then the schedule was advanced to the inaugural ceremony which was hosted by the Dean of the college Dr. David Hinks and Ms. Avoni Gharde. The ceremony was followed by the panel session, that named "Strategies for Fostering Innovations in Textile Research". During the panel session, representatives from many companies had handed over us glimpses of views about the textile and fibers industry in the US integrated with promotions for their companies. The main activity of the Research day's agenda was the panel session where undergraduate students from NC state University had presented their posters. There were five main areas of researches where students could choose to put their posters on the show, which were Apparel and Textile Design with Marketing and Innovation, Color science, Functional Textiles, Textile Protection & Comfort and Fiber and Polymer Science. At the end of the Poster presentations session, the Networking Luncheon and the lab tours of the college of Textiles were carried out. To be truth to say I am not kind of person like being around people and making connections, I am a type of belonging to the laboratory. So on the first day of the US study tour, I had not done small talks well. Sometimes I felt my awkwardness during chatting with native speakers and hardly got what they had meant, it made me depressing feeling. But for the following days, I had figured out networking was like everyone asks and answers the same two questions over and over again:
- Where are you from?
- What is your research?
After answering these two questions, it was time for me to go deeper and lead to productive conversations which I had fascinated about.

One day after the happening of the Research Day, Textile Summit 2017 was held in the same place. This summit, whose themes were very broad with the state-of-the-art researchers from fields of Materials and Composite, Smart textiles, Surface Modification and Filtration, Medical, Nanotechnologies and Innovation, Manufacturing Innovation, Fiber Technologies and Innovation, Technologies for Garments, Characterization, and Apparel. There were more than 80 representatives from the United States, Britain, Hong Kong, and Japan attending the Textile summit. Renowned professors from each school were invited to give keynote reports about the history, the hierarchy and the up-to-date researches of their institutes. Prof. Ohkawa was the one who introduced long line history of Shinshu University to all audience.
In the afternoon session of the Textile Summit, I gave my presentation, which was my challenge and my opportunity to bring my research under the observation of all researchers. Even now I can still feel the oppression and the pressure for the first time I gave the presentation in front of so many native English speakers. It was a wonderful experience and a great memory because of so many unexpected questions from listeners about my research of water filter. By answering these questions I had come up with many new ideas of how to conduct my future research, understood the technical difficulties needed to surmount for successes.

In conclusion, the US study tour gave me chances of discussions with other researchers from all over the world and communications with native English speakers which had helped me acquire knowledge and insight about a wide spectrum of research in many various fields as well as the experience to overcome nervous moments when I could not express myself fluently in front of native speakers. This was once-in-a-lifetime chance to visit the US where I could assess my current status of English competence and research progress.

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