BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN – DST, the country’s largest telco, has announced a partnership with Universiti Teknologi Brunei (UTB) to develop smart farming and smart environment research in Brunei.
“This will result in an exhilarating prospect for Brunei, in hopes of improving one of its sources of economic revenue in the primary sector, which is agriculture,” DST said in a statement Tuesday.
“Smart environment is an idea to build an environment with technologies such as sensors and displays, to better understand and control the environment… Smart farming is another idea that embeds modern information and communication technology into agriculture.
The collaboration between UTB and DST will pave the way for two key projects: the “Peatland Project” to monitor peat swamps in Badas, Belait for the Networked ASEAN Peat Swamp Forest Communities; and the “Paddy Project”, a wireless network for a smart watering system for paddy plantations in Wasan.
Results and analytics of the project will be used towards improving the state of agriculture in Brunei.
Both projects are funded by the ASEAN ICT Virtual Organization projects of 2018 from the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Japan.
“Data and analytics have many benefits, and agriculture has more data than almost any other industry,” DST said. “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.”
A memorandum of understanding was signed by DST’s Acting Chief Executive Officer, Radin Sufri Radin Basiuni, and UTB’s Acting Vice-Chancellor, Hj Ady Syarmin Hj Md Taib, at the university’s Tungku campus on Tuesday.