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As the first activity under the recently-signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), ICRISAT and the University of Florida (UoF), co-sponsored by CGIAR-CSI, organized a short course on GIS in land management at ICRISAT-Patancheru from 31 July to 4 August 2006.
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Sabine Grunwald, Associate Professor, Department of soil and Water Science (SWS) at the UoF served as the faculty in charge. Sixteen participants from several ICAR labs and agricultural universities in India and two technologists from the CGIAR-CSI team, Sadir Mohideen and Senarath Anjitha, based at IWMI headquarters in Colombo took part in the activity.
GT-AE regional leadership extended support in kind through the participation of Dr Piara Singh, Pierre Sibiry Traore and Irshad Ahmad, while Girish from the FES joined as a full-fledged participant. A lab with 12 high-end workstations with ARCGIS licenses was especially set up by the ISU and the LSU for the course.
ICRISAT had signed an MOU with the UoF to offer a variety of courses in the distance mode. The UoF is a pioneer in making agricultural education available through the distance mode, and has set up virtual laboratories to support the learners off-campus. |
| Drs William Dar, Ramesh Reddy and V Balaji during the GIS course. |
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Dr William Dar presided over a session and distributed the certificates on 4 August. Dr Dar explained how he champions flexible and open learning for masses as well as in higher and continuing education.
Professor Ramesh Reddy, eminent soil scientist and Head of the SWS in the UoF expressed his keenness to make quick progress with the collaboration with ICRISAT by making it a regional hub. Dr Grunwald of the UoF felt that the teaching and support facilities in ICRISAT were of high quality.
DDG-R Dyno Keatinge, in his opening remarks, explained the significance of the occasion as a trend-setter. He expected that more and more in-service and certificate courses would follow.
Dr Dar accepted an invitation from Dr Jimmy Cheek, the Vice President of UoF, and said that he will visit Gainesville in late November.
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Sadir Mohideen from CGIAR-CSI Team receives his certificate from Dr Dar. |
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Pierre C. Traore, Irshad Ahmed and Mohammed Ismail
members of the ICRISAT GIS Unit waching attentive to
Sadir, our personal GeoNetwork Guru in CSI |
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Part of the CSI team (Senarath and Sadir) standing next to
Pierre, Irshad and Mohammed Ismail, from ICRISAT. Both
teams
working side by side on GeoNetwork Project |
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