Diliman, Quezon City, Ph --- Following the signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Research Collaboration between the DOST-Advanced Science and Technology Institute (DOST-ASTI) and National Mapping and Resource Information Authority (NAMRIA), both agencies have moved to the next phase of the agreement: sharing and exchanging of knowledge and information through a capacity-enhancement activity. 

Called the Artificial Intelligence for Earth Observation workshop and organized by the DATOS Project, the week-long activity was tailored to fit the needs of NAMRIA for the agency’s nationwide landcover mapping.  

The activity started with NAMRIA introducing their various departments with their corresponding efforts, followed by the presentation of DOST-ASTI's Science and Technology Infrastructures.  

The next day was more of lectures about the Remote Sensing capabilities of the DATOS Project as well as the do’s and don'ts in developing training data for neural network applications. Basic Artificial Intelligence (neural networks) concepts and theories were also discussed. 

 There was a parallel session for coding and digitization exercises on the third day. The researchers and technical staff of NAMRIA were grouped into five (5). Each group had a programmer who went learn and build their own artificial network, while the rest generated their training data for landcover classification. 

Succeeding days were more about the training data preparations, learning more about AI applications, presentation of the AI models, and discussing what went wrong and what went well. 

Since the participants were able to generate their own models, the fourth day was allotted to improving their output. The last day was set for more refining of the models followed by another presentation of the refined output. 

Director Rijaldia Santos also graced the event on the last day. She shared that she is hoping for more capacity-building trainings like this so that they will be able to spread the appreciation with AI. She added that she hopes that the collaboration with DOST-ASTI will continue to enhance NAMRIA’s service to the people and the government as well as shorten the process of releasing higher quality landcover maps. 

Engr. Peter Antonio Banzon, Division Chief of DOST-ASTI's Research and Development Division then expressed his gratitude to the participants with the equal hope of more efficient technology transfer for both agencies.  

The AI4EO ended with awarding of certificates and tokens from both NAMRIA and DOST-ASTI. 

 Thank you, NAMRIA. To more collaborative activities with you!