To celebrate and highlight UNESCO’s International Day of Light (IDL), a Light IDL Event was held May 15 to 18 in Changchun. It was initiated by the journal Light: Science & Applications, IDL’s golden partner.

More than 400 attendees joined the event on site in Changchun and an audience of 15,000 followed the event online.

The event included a Wang Daheng Optics Awards Ceremony, Light 10 Awards Ceremony, the Final Campaign of the Light Doctoral League, a plenary session, Light Academic Workshop, and Light Young Scientists Forum.

Among the events was the Wang Daheng Optics Awards, named in honor of the late Chinese academician Professor Daheng Wang, who is widely regarded as the father of China's optical engineering.

The Light 10 Awards are well-recognized awards for those who have contributed to optics and have had a high impact for society.

In the plenary session, talks were delivered by Professor Jun Luo (President of Sun Yat-Sen University, Fellow of Chinese Academy of Sciences), Prof. Min Gu (Executive Council Chancellor of University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Fellow of Australian Academy of Science, Foreign Fellow of Chinese Academy of Engineering) and 8 other leading scientists in the fields of optics. The event was co-managed by the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics, and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, ScienceNet.cn and iCAN.