In 2005 we initiated the i-ECBO (Explorers of International Cooperation Studies to Cross Borders) program, a special international internship educational program  at the Graduate School of International Development and Cooperation (IDEC) of Hiroshima University. Sandwiched between a preparatory period of training and a post-internship research period of one to three months each, this program sends the participating students to developing countries to carry out their internship in their academic major fields for a period of one to three months. As one of the strategies to promote internationalization of university education, we started G.ecbo (Global Explorers to Cross Borders) program in 2007 to expand the evident educational results of i-ECBO to other graduate schools in Hiroshima University.  This program was adopted as the “Institutional Promotion of Graduate Level Education Reform” (2007-2009) by  Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
Consequently in 2010 we established "the G.ecbo Program - Strategic Center for Global Internship".　Thereafter, we took the ownership of this program and continued with own resources of Hiroshima University and pulled all functions, such as liaison between the university and interns' host institutions and risk management system together and built an effective and systematic graduate education framework. We also try to keep this education program sustainable by coordinating research assignments of the host institutions with the interns’ academic research themes.  
Through this program, we hope to nurture graduate students to become future leaders in the international society. Thus, we wish for your understanding of our program and would appreciate your active assistance as a host institution for our program intern students.

Maharjan Keshav Lall
Chairperson, G.ecbo Program Committee