More than 20 students are attending the IUCr-UNESCO OpenLab Cambodia, organized in partnership with Rigaku Corporation. The workshop is about powder diffraction technique and applications and is making use of the Rigaku Miniflex diffractometer installed at the Institute of Technology of Cambodia.

The IUCr-UNESCO OpenLab Cambodia started last Monday, 7 July. The opening ceremony was chaired by Kim Ngun Bun (lecturer at ITC and local organizer of the event), and welcome speeches were given by Phol Norith (Deputy Director of ITC), Kazuyuki Inoue (Rigaku Corporation), Ros Soveacha (UNESCO Cambodia) and Michele Zema (IUCr, Project Manager for IYCr2014).

The opening remarks session was followed by a talk by Dr Bun about research activities and perspectives in Cambodia and at the ITC in particular. Michele Zema (IUCr) then introduced the global IUCr-UNESCO OpenLab project and the worldwide activities taking place during IYCr.

The afternoon was dedicated to the basics of symmetry and diffraction (M. Zema). On the second and third days, Dr Yue Bing (Rigaku Corporation) introduced the topic of X-ray powder diffraction, including systems, methods and instrumentation.

The last two days (tomorrow and Friday) will be dedicated to hands-on tutorials and students will be able to collect powder diffraction patterns from their own samples and make data analysis.

Everybody is enjoying the great atmosphere and perfect organization. The social dinner of yesterday evening in a typical Khmer restaurant was a perfect icebreaker for all participants.

Opening ceremony	Rigaku workshop staff
Dr Yue Bing lecturing on powder diffraction	Lunch time

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