Recipients of the Kurita Scholarship 2020 Award were honored at a virtual award ceremony organized on 26 August 2020. Mr. Toshiyuki Nakai, President of the Kurita Water and Environment Foundation (KWEF) and Dr. Eden Y. Woon, President of the Asian Institute of Technology handed over award certificates (virtually) to Ms. Huong Thi Thu Nguyen of Vietnam and Mr. Roshan Bhandari and Ms. Nyalima Khanal of Nepal.
While Huong is a student of Water Engineering and Management at AIT’s School of Engineering and Technology (SET), Roshan is a student of Environmental Engineering and Management in the School of Environment, Resources and Development (SERD) and Kyalima is a student of Natural Resources Management in SERD. Awardees from 2019, Ms. Bredith Grace Buhay Bucton, Mr. Nguyen Anh Vu and Mr. Win Myint Thein along with the Kurita alumni from 2017 and 2018 namely Mr. Ang Raksmey, Mr. Nandana Hewawasamge S.M. Premarathna, Ms. Oum Somaly and Ms. Withanage Budhdhima Siriweera, also attended the event.
Welcoming the Kurita delegation, AIT President Dr. Eden Y. Woon congratulated the new awardees and expressed his appreciation to Kurita Water and Environment Foundation for supporting AIT students since 2017. He mentioned that water is still a very important topic and natural resources, we need to protect for all. Therefore AIT is very thankful to have KWEF’s support to work in these important research issues related to water, environment and natural resources in the region and beyond through Kurita scholarships and look forward to having continued support and cooperation from KWEF to work together in the coming years as well. AIT President also briefly informed about AIT’s Hybrid mode of Instruction this semester and the approval of Organizational Quarantine by the Government of Thailand.
KWEF President Mr. Toshiyuki Nakai stated that ever since its establishment in 1997, KWEF has been fostering research on water and water environment issues. He thanked AIT for organizing this ceremony online, congratulated the new awardees and hope that the graduates will be able to contribute in water and water-related issues. He also emphasized that we all need patience during this COVID-19 situation and conveyed his wishes to do the best. He also hoped that the students in environment field could contribute in creating a new social system of human being to co-exist with that of COVID 19 or new inflectional disease that might come.
Ms. Huong, Mr. Roshan and Ms. Kyalima thanked Kurita for awarding them scholarships. The Kurita Scholarship Selection Committee members: Prof. C Visvanathan, Prof. Sangam Shrestha and Dr. Takuji W. Tsusaka of AIT also thanked Kurita for providing the scholarships. Mr. Masa-aki Wakita, General Secretary and Mr. Ishida of KWEF, Mr. Shawn P. Kelly, Director and Ms. Sumana Shrestha Senior Program Officer of the Office of Internal Affairs, AIT, also attended the event.