Photo shows, left row from left: Dr. Brahmanand Mohanty of Energy Program; Mr. Michel Hamelin; Prof. Surapong Chirarattananon of Energy Program; and Prof. C. Visvanathan, Coordinator of Urban Environmental Engineering and Management Program. Right row from right, AIT President, Prof. Jean-Louis Armand, Dr. Nguyen Thi Kim Oanh, Coordinator of Environmental Technology and Management Field of Study; and Mr. Jean-Philippe Thouard, Assistant to the President.
The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ADEME provide support for a new exchange program between AIT and INSA Lyon, France
Mr. Michel Hamelin, Director of International Affairs and Head of Third Countries Department of the French Agency for Environment and Energy Management (ADEME) visited AIT on 4 March 2002 to discuss the ongoing collaboration between ADEME and AIT.
President Jean-Louis Armand and Mr. Michel Hamelin signed an MoU, providing ADEME's support for student and faculty exchange with the National Institute of Applied Sciences (INSA) of Lyon, France for this year. This initiative also receives support from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, under the recently signed financing convention for the French cooperation at AIT in 2002.
The collaboration will focus in Energy and Environmental Engineering, and particularly the following subjects:
- Development of new systems for heating and cooling of buildings
- Energy efficiency in buildings (including building integrated photovoltaics)
- Biotechnology applied to municipal solid waste treatment: focus on leachate characterization, treatment and management. Investigation of landfill pre-treatment techniques for leachate management. Field evaluation of portable Gas Chromatograph in tropical conditions.
- Air pollution control systems with the focus on: industrial emission mitigation and treatment, mobile air pollution source monitoring and modeling health effects, and ambient air monitoring and modeling.
- Development of household water filters for rural areas. Anaerobic treatment of high strength wastewater in tropical conditions.
Under the framework of this agreement, three INSA students are currently enrolled for five months in a special program at AIT (UEEM and Energy Programs). Selected AIT students will in the near future visit INSA Lyon for several months and participate in research activities conducted there as part of there regular AIT academic program. Additionally, AIT faculty will soon visit INSA to define research activities and prepare proposals for common research projects to be conducted in the future.
As part of this visit, Mr. Fouzi Benkhelifa, engineer from EXPLICIT, and consultant from ADEME, presented some research results carried out at Ho Chi Minh City on transport related pollution.
On AIT's side, this collaboration project is under the responsibility of Prof. Visvanathan, UEEM coordinator, email: visu@ait.ac.th, and Dr. Kumar, EP coordinator, email: kumar@ait.ac.th