The UNIGIS orientation workshop organised in Kathmandu 'is a further step towards establishing a UNIGIS study centre in Nepal', said Dr. Shahnawaz (Director South & Southeast Asia, UNIGIS International). He elaborated that this collaboration was initiated already in 2010, but the granting of formal permission from the Ministry of Education can only be facilitated by the new incoming Nepalese Government. Now this process is expected to complete within the next weeks. Anticipating a favourable outcome, a faculty orientation workshop was conducted at the partner institution Kathmandu Forestry College (KAFCOL: www.kafcol.edu.np) on 5th February, 2011. 15 highly motivated individuals attended, including Dr. Bishnu Hari Pandit (Principal KAFCOL), Dr. Krishna Prasad Poudel (Coordinator, UNIGIS at KAFCOL), members of the academic board, other faculty members as well as some potential course participants.
KAFCOL, which is a college affiliated with Tribhuvan University, will offer UNIGIS qualifications under a joint study programme with the Centre for Geoinformatics (Z_GIS: www.uni-salzburg.at/zgis), University of Salzburg, Austria.
