Monday, November 5, 2018

ASEA Uninet Workshop 'smartFARMING' in Selangor, Malaysia

The Interfaculty Department of Geoinformatics - Z_GIS implemented a week-long Interdisciplinary Faculty Development Workshop on 'Geoinformatics for Smart Farming in Southeast Asia (smartFARMING)' at University Putra Malaysia (UPM), Selangor, Malaysia. The workshop was organised jointly by Z_GIS and UPM from 29th October to 2nd November, 2018. The smartFARMING project was co-funded by ASEA Uninet Austria.

The workshop was inaugurated by Dr. (Ms) Siti Khairulnniza Bejo, Head - Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, UPM. The session was followed by lectures delivered by Dr. Aimrun Wayayok, Dr. Rowshon Kamal and Dr. (Ms) Samsuzana Abd Aziz (all from UPM) as well as Dr. Shahnawaz from Z_GIS.

Dr. Shahnawaz (Z_GIS) conducted hands-on sessions of the workshop at Smart Farming Technology Research Centre, Faculty of Engineering, UPM. He also taught the concepts of Smart Farming and Suitability Analyses to the participants as well as trained them in using a range of data sets generated by various satellites and sensors. Having backgrounds in a range of disciplines, 30 teachers and postgraduate students from 9 universities across 4 countries (i.e. Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam) participated in the workshop. They developed individual projects and explored geospatial applications of various remote sensing and other data sets in a range of disciplines and completed hands-on practical tasks with GIS software ArcGIS Desktop. All the participants presented outcomes of their project work in the concluding seminar. The workshop also included a field visit to Malaysia Agro Exposition Park Serdang for traning ten participnts in ground truthing as well as for givig first hand experience of Smart Farming activities.


(smartFARMING participants hailing at the completion of the workshop) 

Prof. Abdul Rashid Bin Mohamed Sharif (UPM) conferred the certificates of successful completion on the participants and congratulated them for having benefitted from this international and interdisciplinary workshop. He also conveyed his gratitude to Z_GIS as well as to ASEA Uninet and expressed willingness to strengthen and expand the institutional collaboration with Z_GIS.

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