Asian Institute of Technology is a graduate school located in Bangkok and established in 1959. The Institute has been supported by donors from various countries, international agencies and the private sector. Students at AIT originate from whole of the Asian region creating a rich international environment, which is one of the most unique characteristics of AIT. At AIT, activities related to remote sensing, GIS, GPS, etc., referred to as geo-informatics, are implemented based on 3 components, namely STAR program, ACRoRS and GAC, which cover Education, Research and Training, respectively. STAR (Space Technology Application and Research) program offers master and doctoral degree courses which are the basic function of AIT as an academic body. ACRoRS, Asian Center for Research on Remote Sensing is carrying out research for advanced technologies, and feeding back the results to the region through STAR and GAC. GAC, GIS Application Center, has been organizing training courses to fulfill the demand for short-term education in the region. These 3 components are closely related sharing resources to increase the effectiveness of the respective activities.
In the STAR program, we are offering GIS courses not only within the program but to institutes to fulfill the demand from all application fields. Since the introduction of GIS has progressed so much in various fields, STAR program started to play a role as GIS technology provider for a variety of application fields for developing close links among them.
ACRoRS has been using GIS databases or developing GIS databases in various projects. For example, GIS, database around Mt. Mayon in the Philippines has been developed in the form of a comprehensive Disaster Prevention Plan as part of a JICA project. Bangkok Ayuttaya satellite map was developed and published using GIS technology combined with remote sensing, in which digitized road network was corrected using high resolution satellite data. GIS is playing a very important role in the research activities of ACRoRS.
GAC has been organizing training courses related to GIS and remote sensing since 1995. Courses sponsored by NASDA are held 5 times a year. Three out of 5 courses are organized by GAC by inviting participants from various countries of Asia. Other two courses are organized outside of Thailand through collaboration with the host countries to gather a large number of local participants. GAC has been developing its course materials using the output of the research projects of ACRoRS. Data in the materials were developed in the course of real research projects. This program is highly appreciated by the participants as it gives them the opportunity of being exposed to real project work. Recently materials for the watershed management course have been published as CD-ROM.