The VIII Latin American NMR School took place from July 21^st to July 25^th at the main campus from Tecnológico de Costa Rica (TEC) in Cartago, Costa Rica. It was the first time that the country hold such kind of event, led by Dr. Karla Ramírez-Gualito and me. The VIII LatAm NMR School was sponsored by the International Society on Magnetic Resonance (ISMAR). Thanks to its financial support it was possible to offer three complete grants to Latin American students. Moreover, the event received financial and logistic support from Bruker, JEOL and Magritek.

Students from Costa Rica, Chile, Perú, Jamaica and Puerto Rico attended the NMR School in Cartago. The event consisted in a series of lectures about quantum mechanics in NMR, relaxation theory, applications, and NMR simulations. The lectures were given by NMR experts from Mexico, United States, Israel and Costa Rica. Most of the talks were focus on benchtop NMR and the practical part took place at the School of Chemistry of TEC, using a Spinsolve 60 (Magritek). Furthermore, it was the first time that a poster session took place as part of the NMR School activities, with 8 posters presented by undergrad and grad students from Latin America.

As part of the schedule, a one-day social event took place where attendees visited a coffee farm in the village of Santa María de Dota. The social activity was an excellent opportunity for networking between participants.

The VIII LatAm NMR School was a great success, developed in a respectful and friendly atmosphere, where participants had the opportunity to interact with NMR experts from academia and industry. I am confident that this NMR School will bring new collaborations to foster NMR in our region.

Special thanks to the students Daniel Fernández-Rodríguez and Brandon Ortega-Cordero, both majoring in Engineering Physics at TEC, for their valuable support before and during the event.