Daily Times

BEIJING: A free training course Satellite Receiving Station and Remote Sensing Application is being held to enhance scientific data service capabilities of Pakistani students and young professionals.

“It’s very nice and informative and goes beyond the purely theoretical scope and truly serves the progress of earth science in Pakistan,” said Basanta, a Pakistani student of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). As Pakistan is short of timely, high-resolution satellite remote sensing data along China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the training course on Satellite Receiving Station and Remote Sensing Application, organized by China-Pakistan Joint Research Centre on Earth Sciences (CPJRC) in collaboration with the Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment (IMDE) of CAS, Aerospace Information Research Institute (AIRCAS) of CAS and the International Centre on Space Technologies for Natural and Cultural Heritage (HIST) under the auspices of UNESCO, was opened in Beijing, CEN reported.

It is mainly for Pakistani students and young professionals both on-site in Beijing and online in Pakistan. The training course will last three days with several lectures delivered by China’s top scholars in this field. “As we all know, CPEC is a pilot area and a flagship project of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which benefits both Pakistan and China. Remote sensing technologies are extremely important in various fields, including scientific research, prevention and mitigation of natural hazards, agriculture, and so on.

” China has set up a number of satellite receiving stations, including the station in Kashi. This station can acquire satellite data covering Pakistan and Central Asia,” Prof. Cui Peng, Academician of CAS, Director of CPJRC, said in his speech today. He also introduced: “This is really an international training course as we have 44 participants offline. 23 of them are from Pakistan, and the others are from Egypt, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Rwanda, Nigeria, Morocco, and India. It’s my sincere hope that students will not only learn from the professors but also learn from each other among the participants. We also sincerely welcome that some of you will join us in the future after your graduation.”

As one of the institutions of CAS for the construction of CPJRC, AIRCAS has had lots of experience in organizing international training courses on remote sensing applications including the ‘High-Level Training Course on Remote Sensing Virtual Ground Station and Application under the framework of Digital Belt and Road’ which was successfully held in 2018. Through this Course, the AIRCAS will deploy data sharing systems and virtual satellite ground stations to enhance Pakistani scientific data service capabilities and to promote scientific and technological cooperation in the field of remote sensing technologies.

“This training will help Pakistani scholars learn how satellite receiving stations develop in China, how to share the data and relevant services, how to apply remote sensing technologies in water resources, locust prevention, natural hazards mitigation and reduction, cultural and natural heritage conservation,” introduced by CPJRC. Also, the attendees (on-site) will get a certificate from China-Pakistan Joint Research Centre on Earth Science for this course. All the courses, registration, accommodation and food are free.