On February 27th, Dr. Anond Snidvongs, GISTDA Executive Director, concurrently with delegates from the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), and the Ramkamhaeng University participated as strategic partners in “the Launching Ceremony of the Digital Belt and Road (DBAR) International Centre of Excellence (ICoE-Bangkok)”, which was held at Centara Grand at Central Plaza Ladprao, Bangkok. With the clear position to encourage this program, Dr. Anond addressed GISTDA conceptualization under the collaboration of DBAR networks in order to contribute the sustainable development in ASEAN.

     Additionally, on February 26th, Dr. Anond gave a warm welcome to the DBAR Secretariat team, led by Prof. Guo Huadong, Chairman of DBAR Secretariat from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and Dr. Monthip Sriratana, the Director of Climate Change Research Strategy Center, National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT) during the official visit to GISTDA. On this occasion, a collaboration concept under DBAR initiative was discussed.

     The NRCT agreed to sign the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish the International Centre of Excellence (ICoE-Bangkok) with the DBAR Secretariat. The aim of the MoU is to exchange expertise, experience, technologies and data from earth observation satellites or Big Earth Data, focusing on environment change, water management, agriculture and food security, coastal zone, and disaster risk reduction. The ICoE-Bangkok is one of 8 international nodes which consists of the United States of America, Finland, Italy, Pakistan, Morocco, Russia and Zambia. The advent of the ICoE-Bangkok was contributed by CAS in cooperation with 4 strategic partners in Thailand which are NRCT, AIT, RU, and GISTDA.