On 13 October 2008, AIT signed Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with
Ethiopia's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MoARD). The
agreement underlines providing postgraduate studies opportunities at
AIT for staff members of MoARD as part of their capacity building
initiatives.

On 17 October 2008, the AIT Conference Center Auditorium was packed
with students from the AIT Community School in national costumes to
observe and celebrate UN Day on 24 October 2008. Parent, school
teachers and the rest of the AIT community joined in the event which
carried the theme “Environmental Sustainability: An Essential Tool for
Poverty Alleviation”.

According to Dr. R.K. Padam, the AITCS
principal, approximately 300 students from 34 nationalities donned
their national costumes in the spirit of the UN Day.

Mr. Uttam Shrestha (pictured above, left), an AIT alumnus
from Nepal, was recently awarded the Nepal Bidhya Bhusan Padak-Kha
(Nepal Academic Excellency Award – B) at the World Literacy Day and
National Education Day, organized by Nepalese Ministry of Education on
8 September 2008.

The award was presented by the President of Federal Republic of Nepal.

On the tenth of October, the formal inauguration of the AIT-Balkh
University (BU) project office took place at AIT. Acting Chairperson of
the AIT Board of Trustees, H. E. Mrs. Merete Fjeld Brattested (fourth
from left) , Ambassador of Norway to Thailand, who was the guest of
honor, was invited to perform the honorary and symbolic ribbon cutting.

October 9 marked the AIT Institute Forum held at the AIT Conference
Center Auditorium. The event attracted a large number of concerned
faculty, staff and students of the community.
 
During the Forum, Prof. Said Irandoust, AIT president, provided an
overview on the financial performance of the Institute, comparison
vis-à-vis the outcomes over the past 3 years, student enrolment trends
and the key elements of the AIT Strategy 2013. He also touched upon
some of the hot topics such as outsourcing, upgrading of AIT
facilities, performance evaluation and employee benefits, fundraising
and AIT Golden Jubilee preparations.

On October 9 2008, Prof Said Irandoust delivered the welcome and
opening address at the fifth follow up workshop on the Greater Mekong
Subregion Energy and Environment Network (GMSEENet) Knowledge
Management Toolkit Project, which took place at AIT. This activity was
organized by the Greater Mekong Subregion Academic and Research Network
(GMSARN) including the efforts of Professor Vilas Wuwongse, Vice
President External Relations; Dr. Weerakorn Ongsakul, GMSARN Secretary
General, and Dr. Paul Janecek, Coordinator of the Computer Science and
Information Management Field of Study.

H.E. Mr. Anand Panyarachun, former Chairman of the
AIT Board of Trustees, and former Prime Minister of Thailand, had a
public lecture on “Sustainable Democracy’ which he delivered in
Brussels on 24 June 2008, as part of the Amartya Sen Lecture
Series on Sustainable Development in association with Cambridge
Society, Oxford Society and Harvard Club, of Belgium.

AIT President Said Irandoust’s interview
with the “The Nation” newspaper was published on Saturday, 4 October,
titled: "AIT's agent of change".  This was based on the 17
September interview by The Nation newspaper’s Senior Editor, Mr.
Nophakhun Limsamarnphun, which was arranged by Mr. Shawn Kelly, AIT
News and Media Specialist and Ms. Natnipha Vimuktanon, Assistant
Information Officer, from the Promotional Support Services Unit.

Professor Peter Haddawy, Vice President for Academic Affairs, has
been invited to serve as a member of the Steering Committee of the
SEA-EU-NET Project. The SEA-EU-NET Project has been set up to expand
scientific collaboration between Europe and South East Asia in a more
strategic and coherent manner.

Dr. Nitin K. Tripathi, from the Remote Sensing and GIS
field of study, School of Engineering and Technology, who is also the
Director for Quality Assurance and Accreditation at AIT, has been
invited to serve as the Editor of a special issue on “Applied Remote
Sensing in Coastal and Ocean Engineering (ARSiCOE)” for the
“International Journal of Imaging (IJI)” ISSN 0974-0627.