The Ilum School of Science was born with an innovative and modern educational concept to meet Brazil’s need to train scientists that are well qualified in science and technology. The students begin their academic career focused on the learning needed to solve future problems in the areas of the environment, energy and health. They will have contact with groundbreaking methodologies to understand the subject matter, from theory and computational methods up to practice and their interactions in the world. Through immersion in the scientific and technological environment at CNPEM and the national laboratories, Ilum students experience how modern scientific problems are faced and can correlate this with their course content. As a result, I am fully confident that Ilum students will be able to work in the job market to drive Brazil in the area of scientific and technological growth, and potentially become the future intellectual leaders in our next generation of scientists.