Laying the Foundations for geoDRR

The geoDRR project started on strong footing in laying the foundations that would ensure its success. This initial semester, running from November 2020 to March 2021, was an important alignment period for the project’s goals and the readiness of every partner institution to full contribution.

Kick-off and Project Structure

The semester got underway with online meetings that brought together the partners from Luxembourg, Poland, Greece, Spain, Cambodia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. These meetings sorted out the respective project roles and provided a roadmap for the next three years. The main priority was matching the needs of universities in South East Asia with the competencies offered by the European partners to ensure that the Master’s in Geomatics for Disaster Risk Reduction could address the most urgent local disaster risk problems, like flooding, landslides, and typhoons.

Needs Assessment and Curriculum Design

Some of the key activities included the needs assessment study in order to understand the academic gaps at the HEIs of the partner countries. It identified the skill and tool needs of the students and staff for efficient studying and management of disaster risks through surveys and discussions. These also directly informed the curriculum design to ensure that the latter is both relevant and rigorous. At the same time, the terms were prepared concerning the establishment of specifications for the GIS laboratories at the partner universities, thereby laying the platform for practical training.

Virtual Learning Environment – VLE Planning

The first semester had a very important role for the Novel Group to lead the preliminary development of the Virtual Learning Environment. VLE was envisioned to be an online platform to interactively teach the students about actual disaster scenarios. This involved specifying the technical requirements and creating a roadmap for the content development that would start the following semester.

It was highlights on coordination of contributions from all the partners that set the initial phase of this project, as all the partners were to contribute in giving the needed direction for the project. The first period included a successful harmonization of objectives and mutual understanding on how strengths of each institution could be used for the success of the project. Hence, all these activities have provided a flying start for geoDRR to turn out to be one of the leading projects in disaster risk education.