​Every time I open the first slide of my talk, suddenly I feel a surge in my energy level because the cumulative energy of my students appears in me – a humble sense of gratification fills my heart. This year, they have published 2 Nature papers (Sci. Rep. and Asia Mat.), 2 ACS Nano, 1 Small, 4 APLs, 2 TEDs, 4 pss-RRL, 1 MEMS, 9 MRS, 2 IEEE Nano and others totaling into 44 journal and conference papers (only 2 where we are not corresponding authors) with 4 cover images and many are pending for design submission. Truthfully we are yet to compete in many levels for many accolades but we are making steady progress. Many obstacles we face every day in our journey towards excellence: lack of psychological advantage that typically comes from a branded school, weak pedigree (blame goes to me), absence of a “competitive geared towards excellence” eco systems (our fab runs on banking hours), dire need for high quality senior hands-on "hungry for success" researchers in the group (although Kelly is managing her Lab Manager role in the best possible way), irrational (trust me: literally!) reviews and editorials (no comment as some of them are so famous and influential) frustrate us in every single way. This will continue for years to come and may be decades from now when we will be completely burnt out, a phoenix will rise from our ashes and will fly freely, taking a deep breath in soft zephyr and will look into the horizon where the sun is rising with a big smiley face to see another tens of “Audacity of Hope Labs” are running successfully all over the world by the revered engineering leaders who once were my partners in the Integrated Nanotechnology Lab @ KAUST.

Deepest appreciation to our mentors for their heartfelt support in many different ways and our families for their patience and unconditional support so we can relentlessly pursue to succeed against all odds by stretching the limit of human imagination by innovative integration of science and engineering ...