In 1959, Richard Feynman, in occasion of the American Physical Society meeting, gave his famous talk entitled “There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom”. In that occasion he outlined what is today considered the birth of nanotechnology. Feynman's futuristic vision included ultra-dense data storage, nanobots for medical applications, imaging at the nanometric scale, and gaining control over the molecular self-assembling processes. In more general terms, Feynman asked the revolutionary question "What would happen if we could arrange the atoms one by one the way we want them?". Today, we can already give a partial reply to his fundamental query. For example, we know that metallic nano-inclusions inside a dielectric matrix could allow for re-designing the optical properties of structured materials. In this way, we could shape both amplitude and phase of the propagating optical radiation at will, and/or allow for the propagation of waves which would be evanescent otherwise.
         Nanophotonics is the branch of science that studies the light-matter interaction on a scale one million times smaller than a grain of sand. Here, things are so small we have to rethink our natural way of solving problems, and the typical top-down approach becomes inefficient. Gaining full control over the properties of artificial "meta-atoms" will enable the engineering of new materials and devices with unprecedented capabilities (such as invisibility, super-resolution imaging, bio- and quantum-computing, efficient and cost effective energy harvesting, etc.). For the first time in human history designers, scientists, and engineers,  instead of sizing a problem with respect to the available capabilities, can think to provide themselves with the perfect tool even for the most ambitious goals.