A five-day workshop on wireless technologies for
emergencies,
"Wireless U; Wireless Internet-Emergency Workshops" - was recently
held at the Asian Institute of Technology on12-16 October 2009. It was
organized by AIT’s Internet Education and Research Laboratory
(intERLab) with support from the State Ministry for Research and
Technology of Indonesia (RISTEK Indonesia) and the National Electronics
and Computer Technology Center (NECTEC), Thailand.
AIT President Prof. Said Irandoust welcomed the
participants from Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Bangladesh and Thailand on
13 October highlighting the timeliness of the workshop in relation to
climate change and the recent calamities that affected Thailand’s
neighboring countries Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia,
and some parts of China.
Dr. Onno W. Purbo, an expert on knowledge-based
societies and one of RISTEK’s speakers, began the training with an
overview of wireless data transmission technology focusing on its
importance during emergency conditions, its configuration and proper
deployment practices.
Another key speaker was Mr. Mahabir Pun whose work
in rural networks set-up garnered him a with Overall Social Innovation
Award (2004) by the Global Ideas Bank – United Kingdom, and more
recently a Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership (2007).
During the training, AIT’s signature project on
emergency networks -- Digital Ubiquitous Mobile Broadband OLSR or DUMBO
for short, was introduced to the participants. When the 2004 Asian
Tsunami devastated the Andaman Sea area of Thailand, it was realized
that to help the wounded, a communication infrastructure must be
present at the disaster site. DUMBO addresses this by providing a
multimedia communication network without any pre-existing network
infrastructure. Its second phase, DUMBO-2 deploys emergency wireless
networks for post-disaster rescue operation. Part of the training was
devoted to transferring expertise on DUMBO and emergency networks.
The training attracted some media attention from detikinet.com (In
Bahasa Indonesia):
1.
Indonesia Memimpin WiMAX Regional
2.
Ajaran Wajanbolic Teobolic Menyebar ke Negara Tetangga
Professor Irandoust was also interviewed by Metro TV Indonesia, a
24-hour news channel based in West Jakarta, where he spotlighted AIT’s
significance and contribution in the region, specifically in terms of
technology. The training and interview will be featured in a popular
program on information technology and society called e-Lifestyle.
