The CISCAI Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Training was successfully conducted at the  Information Centre of Natural Resources and Environment of Vietnam (CIREN) in Hanoi Vietnam, from  3 -28 August  2009. The Training was part of the CISCAI project’s milestone activities  which sought to provide the transfer of  ICT- based technologies, particularly that of  GIS, among  CISCAI stakeholders. The GIS Training was participated in by  Mr. Phonepaseuth Soulinthone of the Information Technology Research Institute (ITRI) Laos People’s Democratic Republic and Mr. Bambang Wijayanto, Systems Administrator of CISCAI, of Indonesia, as  part of the technology transfer and localization process which has been built in to the CISCAI Project.

“This is an honor to our Center (CIREN) to be able to hold this CISCAI GIS training. We believe that the knowledge should not be kept among  ourselves, but  rather should be shared  among  our brothers and sisters in the ASEAN”,  said Mr. Tran Kiem Dung, Director of CIREN-Soft  during his opening speech.  

The GIS training was conducted by three   GIS experts from CIREN: Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Vu  who talked on Arch GIS, Map Server & MySQL; Mr. Pham Minh Truong  discussed topics on Web & Mobile Information System using PHP & and J2ME; and Mr. Aasheim Steinar, visiting GIS expert from Norway, talked on various  Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), such as Openlayers, Google map,  among others.

The month-long training  focused more on practical, hands-on exercises  complemented with  lectures on various GIS theories and principles. This method had proven to be  the most effective  technique to  convey very complex and difficult principles among trainees who have limited knowledge on the subject. “I never thought that deploying  a Web Geographical Information System was  that  easy!”, said Mr.  Soulinthone of ITRI.

Besides the training, the participants also actively participated in the discussions on the over-all system design of CISCAI’s Information System which is currently under development  by CIREN.  

The Training was capped  with field testing sessions. In the simulation that was held outside of Hanoi (in the vicinity of Noi Bai Airport), the engineers were able to successfully transmit the field data  including the global positioning system (GPS) coordinates and  on-site photos  to the central  server in CIREN. The system was also able to simultaneously  process  and show the  field information  in real-time on the map  through the  test website.

“This successful GIS Training is another proof  of the ASEAN’s  spirit of cooperation, and is strongly  aligned to the objective of the ASEAN Foundation which is to promote cooperation among the peoples of ASEAN, their greater participation in ASEAN activities, and the reinforcement of ASEAN solidarity”,  said Mr. Bambang Wijayanto during  his closing remarks.  (CISCAI-PCU)