27 August 2019 – DST recently established an exciting new collaboration with Universiti Teknologi Brunei (UTB) in line with the University’s aim to develop and cultivate in the fields of Smart Environment and Smart Farming.
This collaboration was established through the signing of a Memorandom of Understanding between Datastream Technology (DST) and UTB at Main Conference Room of the University.
Signing the Memorandom of Understanding on behalf of DST was Yang Mulia Radin bin Sufri Radin Basiuni, Acting Chief Executive Officer of DST, while UTB was represented by Yang Mulia Awang Haji Ady Syarmin bin Haji Md Taib, Acting Vice-Chancellor of UTB. Also in attendance signing as witnesses was Yang Mulia Hjh Safrina binti PD Hj Abd Rahman, Senior Manager of Group Corporate Communications of DST and Yang Mulia Jennifer Voon Nyuk Hiong, the Director of Industry and Liaison Officer, UTB as well as DST representatives and other UTB Principal Officers.
Smart Environment is an idea to build an environment with technologies such as sensors and displays, to better understand and control the environment. On the other hand, Smart Farming is another idea that embeds modern Information and Communication Technology (ICT) into agriculture. As both of these ideas has similarities and are interrelated to each other, this will result in an exhilarating prospect for Brunei, in hopes of improving one of its sources of economical revenue in the primary sector, which is agriculture.
The collaboration will result in research projects that will be conducted in Brunei. This includes the “Peatland Project”, which is the monitoring of Peat swamp at Badas for the Networked ASEAN Peat Swamp Forest Communities as well as the “Paddy Project”, which is the mesh-topological low-power wireless network platform for a smart watering system for paddy plantation at Wasan. Both projects are funded by ASEAN ICT Virtual Organisation projects of 2018 from National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, NICT JAPAN.
Positively, results and analysis from the project will be used to improve greatly the means of farming in Brunei.
Freddie Ting, Manager in DST and project coordinator for DST’s contributions provides his comments, “Emerging technologies in this digital age and the move towards the 4th Industrial Revolution are set to change and improve on Smart Cities. Agriculture is currently using these new technologies for smart farming, creating what we now call Smart Agriculture with the use of data and analytics to improve farming methods.
Data and analytics have many benefits, and agriculture has more data than almost any other industry. Farmers around the world are using data and analytics to increase food production to help meet the ever-growing global demand.
DST is pleased to support UTB in their Smart Agriculture initiative using modern high technology that sustainably increases the quantity and quality of agricultural products.
DST will support the nation’s objectives to implement smart city solutions leading to delivering real, long term benefits for businesses and citizens alike.”
