WEEK# 37, 19 - 25 September, 2022
In this issue:
C. Visitors/ MoU/ Agreement Signing
1) IMPORTANT Update from the AIT COVID-19 Task Force
Dear AIT Family,
COVID-19 Status in Thailand – At the global level, the number of cases and fatalities from the BA.4 and BA.5 variant of COVID-19 is on a downward trend and more countries are relaxing their entry requirements. Thailand has also fully opened up to international travel with most of the earlier COVID-19 measures having been relaxed. The following updates were provided by the Thai Government’s Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) at their briefing on 1 September 2022.
· The COVID-19 alert level remains at level 2 nationwide in Thailand. This means that people are encouraged to wear face masks in public areas when other people are present and people with chronic diseases are encouraged to be completely vaccinated. That is, to receive the number of vaccinations prescribed by the vaccine manufacturer. Vulnerable groups who have not been completely vaccinated, or have not yet received their booster dose, are discouraged from going to crowded areas, or attending activities with a large number of people.
· Thailand plans to downgrade COVID-19 from a ‘dangerous communicable disease’ to a ‘communicable disease under surveillance’ from 1 October 2022 onwards.
COVID-19 Status at AIT and its Safety and Precautionary Measures on Campus – Since the start of September, the campus had 24 community members who tested positive for COVID-19. This illustrates that while the country has opened up and measures relaxed, as a community it is our collective responsibility to continue to remain vigilant, and not let our guard down. Therefore, we would like to strongly urge that everyone continue to take more personal responsibility for their safety and that of the community as we live with COVID-19 in our midst. Please refer to the following TF advice should you test positive for COVID-19 or have been informed that you were identified as a close contact of a positive case:
· TF Advice for COVID-19 Positive Cases
· TF Advice for Close Contacts of COVID-19 Positive Cases
Please also refer below a list of updated safety and precautionary measures regarding COVID-19 observed on campus. These are readily available in its updated Intranet page, for easy reference, as well as for the latest information. And the TF can still be reached through its group email covid19tf@ait.asia for inquiries and clarification.
1. Instruction / Classes and Contact with Students – In-person classes will be the normal mode of instruction although hybrid arrangements would still be available for those who are unable to come into Thailand.
2. Work Arrangements – Full in-person workforce reporting to office was in effect since July 2022. The necessary safety precautionary measures must always be ensured at the workplace.
Flexible work arrangements may be adopted for some employees in consultation with and approval of their respective immediate supervisors, as stipulated in the Institute P&Ps on Employment of Faculty and Staff: General Work Regulations (PA-1-1-1 and PA-1-3-3), provided that their Unit’s mission can still be accomplished and the operational requirements of the Institute are supported.
3. Mask Mandate on Campus – Although not mandatory, the TF continues to encourage the wearing of face mask when in the company of others, most especially when social distancing cannot be strictly observed, and inside buildings – unless for special circumstances for short intervals, e.g., photo taking, eating, etc. And it is strongly recommended that face mask be worn in crowded or poorly ventilated places and by those having symptoms.
4. Gatherings – For indoor and outdoor gatherings, maximum participation is already allowed, but social distancing is still recommended. There is no need to inform the TF, but organizers must ensure that safety precautionary measures are complied with, as appropriate.
5. Visitors / Guests – Sponsors of day visitors and hosts of overnight guests at AIT (AIT Conference Center and on-campus residences) must obtain from their guests proof of vaccination status or a negative ATK test result prior to the visit.
6. Food Service – Organizers should consider sit-down set meals instead of a buffet. In case a buffet is organized, it is preferred to assign food servers, who must be well protected with masks and gloves. Self-service may be allowed following proper hygiene measures.
7. Sports and other Facilities – All sports facilities (e.g. fields, courts, gym, China Center) are now open for general use following safety and hygiene measures. Please refer to relevant offices (e.g. OFAM, SU, etc) for permission / approval.
Swimming Pool – Walk-in registration is required. Wednesdays are reserved for women users as practiced earlier.
Hair Salons – The hair salons are fully open for walk-in and waiting customers.
8. International Travels – Relevant offices will coordinate directly with new students and employees, as well as other guests, from overseas, in recording the date of arrival in Thailand as soon as they are confirmed, as well as obtain their vaccination records. The TF no longer needs to be informed of international travels (inbound and outbound).
Unvaccinated or partially vaccinated travelers are required to take an ATK upon arrival in Thailand, preferably before coming to AIT campus.
We would like to urge our community to maintain the safety and health measures under universal prevention. It is important that we not let our guard down and wish to reiterate that we must remain vigilant and adhere to the COVID-19 precautionary measures and protocols.
Thank you for your cooperation.
AIT COVID-19 Task Force
This special lecture will be held via hybrid system on:
Date: Monday, 19 September 2022
Time: 13.00-16.00 hrs.
Venue: E222, Academic Building, Asian Institute of Technology
https://ait-ac-th.zoom.us/j/5215527772
Zoom Meeting ID: 521 552 7772
Passcode: 694454
Speaker Profile:
Professor Shabbir H. Gheewala is a professor at the Joint Graduate School of Energy and Environment (JGSEE), Thailand where he teaches Life Cycle Assessment and has led the Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment Lab for over 20 years. He also holds an adjunct professorship at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, USA and is a Distinguished Adjunct Professor at AIT. His research focuses on sustainability assessment of energy systems; sustainability indicators; circular economy; and certification issues in biofuels and the agro-industry. He is a national expert on life cycle inventory as well as carbon and water footprinting in Thailand. He mentors the research network on sustainability assessment and policy for food, fuel and climate change in Thailand.
He has been ranked as one of the world’s top 1000 most influential climate scientists (Reuter’s Hot List 2021) and the world's top 1% of the most-cited researchers in “earth and environmental sciences” (2020). More recently, he has been awarded the Mahidol Science Environment & Sustainability Award (2022).
With about 300 papers in peer reviewed journals and a Scopus h-index of 49, he is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Sustainable Energy and Environment, Specialty Chief Editor of Quantitative Sustainability Assessment at Frontiers in Sustainability, and on the editorial boards of the Sustainable Production and Consumption (Elsevier), International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment (Springer), and a host of other international journals.
All interested are welcome to this special lecture.
3) AIT Tech Talks on Open Innovation for Impact Lessons from Silicon Valley
We are pleased to announce the seventh event of the AIT Tech Talks on Open Innovation for Impact Lessons from Silicon Valley on 21 September 2022 at 04.00 pm (Bangkok Time). This event will be organized under the AIT Enterprises Alliance (AEA) and Schoolab
Event highlights:
• Deplastify the planet – a program co-created in San Francisco, with UC Berkeley brings major companies and talents together to work on plastic pollution and environmental challenges in order to identify new business opportunities and more sustainable systems.
Register: https://forms.gle/w8GQjcLASetjXjSx5
Thank you and we look forward to seeing you there!
4) The AIT WILDLIFE AND NATURE PHOTO CONTEST
THE LAST DATE OF SUBMISSION IS EXTENDED TO 23 SEPTEMBER 2022.
The AIT WILDLIFE AND NATURE PHOTO CONTEST (AIT WNPC) is supported by the Regional Resource Centre for Asia and the Pacific (RRC.AP), Office of Facilities and Asset Management (OFAM), and Student Union (SU). OSC sincerely appreciates and would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your generous support.
The objective of this contest is to raise awareness and for the protection of the wildlife and nature around us. The shortlisted photo contest pictures will be exhibited at the AITCC lobby exhibition board and will be posted on social media to raise awareness in the AIT community and encourage and instill a thought of sustainable living. We invite AIT community members to participate in this contest to be part of the “Wildlife and Nature around us Awareness and protection Campaign” that we are announcing for the month of September 2022. OSC is planning to organize more exciting sustainability living awareness activities very soon, keep checking our posts on SU Facebook and emails.
1. WHO IS ELIGIBLE: WNPC is open to all photographers of the AIT community
General Category: students, Staff Faculty, and Residents of AIT who are at least 18 years of age.
Children Category: Entrants 8-17 years of age (“child entrants”) MUST enter only the Children Category
2. HOW TO ENTER: Entries may be submitted as digital files online through the QR code below or click the link here
3. CONTEST ENTRY PERIOD: The photos can be submitted any time before 23 September 2022
For more information and for the rules of the contest, please scan the QR code below or please click the link here
B. Workshops/ Conferences
1) The ICUE 2022 conference
The last time Asian Institute of Technology held the ICUE international conference in 2020, the pandemic was at its peak. The COVID 19 has changed nearly all the aspects of our lives including the way we organize and hold academic events like ICUE. Even in the worst time of pandemic, we never fail to exchange our knowledge, opinions, and our findings not just to improve and support each other’s research works but also to implement the goals we set for sustainable development.
“ We are glad to inform you that this year, AIT will proudly organize and hold the ICUE 2022 conference in Pattaya City from 26 to 28 October 2022.“
Attaining the goals of sustainable development is based on three interlinked criteria: economic development, social progress, and environmental protection. Development would be meaningless if it does not ensure a sustainable economic growth that guarantees future generations’ ability to thrive and prosper without sacrificing the regenerative capacity of the environment. Economic activities always equate to environmental degradation and pollution, CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions and consequently global warming and climate change consequences. Thus it is our generation’s challenge to aim for a low-carbon based economic growth as it is the only way to help mitigate environmental pollution and subsequent effects of climate change. The ICUE 2022 conference is being organized by the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) to be a venue to exchange research ideas, outputs, experiences by covering technical, social, financial, economic and policy issues on Energy, Environment, and Climate Change. The conference is part of the ICUE conference series being organized by AIT every two years. Here, we expect professionals, policy makers, researchers, engineers, members of the academia, to convene and discuss global, regional, and national issues, covering a wide range of technical, economic, and social dimensions of energy utilization, its effect on the environment and climate change.
The ICUE 2022 Scientific Committee will select and announce the best conference papers (presented) after the conference. The selected papers can be recommended to the journal of Frontiers of Environmental Science and Engineering. It is an internationally peer-reviewed scientific journal of Chinese Academy of Engineering (IF 4.357), aiming to advance and disseminate knowledge in a wide range of environmental disciplines, and to promote interchange of ideas between environmental scientists and engineers in China and around the world. Authors who accept the recommendation can submit their full paper to the journal for further peer-review. Authors can also choose to publish their papers in the conference proceedings.
Best Student Paper Awards will be accorded to well-written and presented student papers (oral presentation MUST be done by a current student). The winning papers will be invited for publication in the International Energy Journal (IEJ) – an open-source, Scopus-indexed, ESCI-abstracted, and EI Compendex-listed peer-reviewed journal published by the Asian Institute of Technology. Moreover, the proceedings of the ICUE 2022 conference will be published inthe IEEE Xplore.
On behalf of the organizing committee of the ICUE 2022, we cordially invite you to participate in this conference. The early bird registration for the conference will open until 15 August 2022, so take your chance to register before the deadline. See you in Pattaya. For more information, please visit our conference website at www.icue2022.ait.ac.th.
2) The Water Security and Climate Change Conferences
Date: 1-3 December 2022
Venue: Hybrid (with physical sessions at the Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand)
Organizers: CNRD (TH Köln), SWINDON (TU Braunschweig), FSC (Univ. Hohenheim),
SDG Network (Univ. Gießen), ABCD Centre (TU Dresden), & the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT).
The Water Security and Climate Change (WSCC) series of conferences have been held on an annual basis since 2016. The first edition of the conference was organized in Bangkok (2016), and subsequently in Cologne (2017), Nairobi (2018), San Luis Potosí (2019), and Hanoi (2021). The overarching objective of these conferences is to proliferate the exchange of knowledge and practical know-how on the intrinsic relationship between water security and climate change, with a view to advance fundamental and action research in this domain that will help humankind address one of the greatest challenges of our times.
The WSCC conferences have become a notable academic platform for scientific, technical discourses, and policy-oriented discourses and discussions, evidenced by the increased number of participants each year. Furthermore, the conference has also contributed to the strengthening of the EXCEED by connecting member networks as well as raising awareness on the topic of water security and climate change. The conference additionally broadens its organization committee in 2022 by including the DAAD-funded organizations SDG nexus Network and ABCD-Center.
This year, the WSCC will be held from 01–03 December 2022 in Bangkok. The conference will be organized in a hybrid format, with a selected number of participants invited to Bangkok to present their work in person, while some sessions organized online for a wider audience.
Conference website: https://watersecurity.info
Call for abstract submission: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=wscc2022
3) International Symposium in Pattaya, 8-10 Dec 2022
Email was sent on behalf of the School of Engineering and Technolog on 24 August 2022.
I would like to invite you to participate in the 1st International Symposium on ONE HEALTH, ONE WORLD (OHOW). This is the first one in its series. The Symposium is initiated and organized by AIT and the University of Tokyo.
The scope of the Symposium covers many subjects, which include, for example,
- Urban Safety & Disaster Mitigation,
- Pollution and environmental risk management,
- Climate change and water resources,
- Pandemic and public health issues,
- Biodiversity, wildlife and terrestrial ecosystems,
- Carbon emissions
You might be interested to share your work on these subjects in this Symposium. There will be many researchers from the University of Tokyo joining this Symposium.
Only an extended abstract is required (a full paper is not required), and the deadline is September 16th, 2022 (about 4- 5 weeks from now). The deadline is not rigid. All these abstracts will be open to the public after the symposium.
The venue is Pattaya. Most likely it will be a good hotel in Jomtien Beach. All participants and their family can enjoy it.
The registration fee is quite low: 150 US$ for domestic participants (Thai & non-Thai) and 50 US$ for domestic students (Thai & non-Thai).
It is a 2-day symposium followed by a one-day technical/cultural tour.
Please also help promote this symposium by distributing the attached symposium brochure to your colleagues and those who might be interested.
Thank you very much & looking forward to seeing you in the Symposium.
4) The 17th Asian Internet Engineering Conference
The 17th Asian Internet Engineering Conference (AINTEC), in cooperation with ACM SIGCOMM, provides an international technical forum for experts from industry and academia. AINTEC especially aims at addressing issues pertinent to the Asia and Pacific region, with vast diversities of socio-economic and networking conditions, while inviting high quality and recent research results from the Internet research community at large. AINTEC 2022 follows the previous sixteen successful editions. The conference is single-track and features a technical program with significant opportunities for individual and small-group discussions among a diverse set of participants. The technical sessions will include invited talks by leading experts, presentations of papers, demos, and posters.
For more details: https://interlab.ait.ac.th/aintec2022/
C. Visitors/ MoU/ Agreement Signing
Prof. Thammarat Koottaep, SERD / Copenhagen, Denmark/ 10 - 23 September 2022
Prof. Weerakorn Ongsakul, SERD/ London, England/ 24 - 29 October 2022
Prof. Mukand S. Babel, Hanoi, Vietnam/ 21 - 23 September 2022
Prof. Mukand S. Babel, Kathmandu, Nepal/ 27 - 30 September 2022
Prof. S. Kumar, Nothern / Northern, Thailand/ 3 - 7 October 2022
Dr. Vu Puc Hien/ Nothern, Thailand/ 3 - 7 October 2022
Dr. Chirstopher J. Garnier/ Colombo, Srilanka/ 13 - 16 November 2022
M.r Hillson Ghimire, GIC / India/ 20 - 28 September 2022
Ms. Sirikate Owasit, OAAA/ Srilanka / 13 - 20 November 2022
Mr. Sanjeev Jayasignhe, OAAA/ Srilanka/ 13 - 20 November 2022
Position: Assistant / Associate Professor (SERD-EECC-ETM)
Ref: 4/ 22
Deadline: 30 Novermber 2022
http://www.hro.ait.ac.th/job/show/798
Position: Associate / Assistant Professor, SET-ICT
Ref: 3/ 22
Deadline: 30 September 2022
http://www.hro.ait.ac.th/job/show/793
Position: Assistant Professor, School of Engineering & Technology (CIE-TRE)
Ref: 5/ 22
Deadline: 30 September 2022
http://www.hro.ait.ac.th/job/show/733
Position: Assistant/Associate Professor (SERD/DDS/UIS)
Ref: 2/ 22
Deadline: 30 September 2022
http://www.hro.ait.ac.th/job/show/770
Position: Coordinator, OIA
Ref: 22/ 22
Deadline: 17 September 2022
http://www.hro.ait.ac.th/job/show/769
Position: Administrative Officer, Language Center
Ref: 48/ 22
Deadline: 21 September 2022
http://www.hro.ait.ac.th/job/show/802
Position: Project Engineer, EC
Ref: 47/ 22
Deadline: 30 September 2022
http://www.hro.ait.ac.th/job/show/801
Position: Administrative Assistant, EC
Ref: 46/ 22
Deadline: 30 September 2022
http://www.hro.ait.ac.th/job/show/799
Position: Asisstant Teacher, AITIS
Ref: 45/ 22
Deadline: 30 September 2022
http://www.hro.ait.ac.th/job/show/800