Young Generation Opening Session

The main question that came out from the session as well as from the Y Notes session was actually a very simple one: why do those young generation movements exist in the nuclear field? Why is there such a need? And to such an obvious question, the answer is not that easy. And it seems to be very different from one country to another. Following this conference, the first action that we should probably conduct all together is to answer it as well as we can. The outside world needs to understand our motivations. Some first answers came out from the meeting, on which everybody agreed:

• We need to create an international network because the past generations did not have the means to do it (political situation, communication tools, globalization status) and because the future nuclear technology will be developed internationally for a lot of obvious reasons.
• The problem of retirement (and transfer of know-how induced) is not solved by natural means in our industry, so we need to handle it differently.
• More and more young people are involved in other applications of nuclear technology than nuclear power, and they have to be somehow connected to each other, at least to talk to the outside world.
• One of the most important targets which whom we have to discuss is the young public in order to build together the energy mix of the future and to attract more students to nuclear education, and since we share the same languages, the same sense of humor, we as YG should be responsible for that in the nuclear world.
• In the communication field also, we can easily use the efficiency of the surprise effect (of being young and in nuclear) to get messages through.
• We all know that this energy will be needed for the future and we feel responsible for maintaining and promoting the related know-how, even if those are quite hard times.

The nuclear industry as a whole probably needs us then, for all these reasons, but what was surprising was that we did not find an answer to the other questions: why do we as young people in the nuclear industry feel so strongly and personally the need for gathering? Let us think about it…

Auto-criticism: among the main goals defined for the YG activities, one of them seems not to be really treated, probably because this is the harder part of the job, even if we talk a lot about it during most of the young generation presentations. Did anybody once present a real and concrete example of a successful transfer of know-how initiated by the young generation? A first solution suggested could be the one of long-term mentoring.

During the session, great news came out with the creation of the Japanese young generation group, which will probably also induce the start of a movement in the whole Asia after the creation of the national networks. In any case, a statement was made that national activities should always have the priority.

And, finally, is this name Young Generation really correct? One strong statement made was that we don’t want to stay as a separate standing organization. And the fact is that our name is sometimes misleading. This is how the Y notes session group agreed to propose a change towards Future Generation. Let us think about it also.