CSIR Program on Youth for Leadership in Science 2008 (CPYLS 2008) was conducted during 23-24 December 2008. More than 100 students from schools/colleges across the state of Orissa were invited to participate in this event. The aim of the program has been to expose young minds to the exciting world of Science and encourage them to take up basic sciences as their career. The inaugural function started with welcome address by Dr. R.K. Paramguru, Scientist ‘G’ and Co-chairman, CPYLS 2008 followed by address by Prof. B.K. Mishra, Director, IMMT and Chairman of CPYLS 2008 who gave an overview of the CPYLS-2008 programme and also introduced the Chief Guest, Prof. Partha Chakroborty, Dean of Student’s affair, IIT, Kanpur. On the plenary session Prof. Chakroborty gave a thought provoking lecture on the ‘Biomimetics’. Dr. Ramesh Sonti, Scientist, CCMB, Hyderabad talked about ‘Attack and Defense in Pathogen versus Plant Interactions’. Students were taken around to visit different laboratories of the institute and were given live demonstration of various sophisticated equipments. At the end of the first day the students were entertained with a cultural show by IMMT Sangeet Kendara and the participants of CPYLS 2008. On the second day i.e., on 24th December 2008 the program started with the lecture on ‘Plasma’ by Dr. B.B. Nayak, Scientist, IMMT Bhubaneswar followed by lecture on ‘Super hydrophobic materials: A gift of nature’ by Dr. K.M. Parida, Scientist, IMMT, Bhubaneswar. Valedictory session started with a lecture by Prof. Rudra Pratap of IISc, Bangalore who spoke on ‘Excitement of Engineering at Micro and Nano Scales’. Students were very much exited and expressed their views about the programme. Finally, all students were given certificates for their participation. During the program an audio-visual show on activities of IMMT Bhubaneswar was also shown to the students to have glimpse various R & D activities of IMMT.