23-Apr-2018, Dhaka. Prof. Umme Kulsum Navera (DWRE, BUET) and Prof. Shah Alam Khan (IWFM, BUET), together with Associate Professor Assela Pathirana of IHE-Delft Institute of water education, met with the Vice-Chancellor of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Prof. Saiful  Islam (CEng FIET FIEB FBCS SrMIEE). Prof. Islam is also a senior scientist and Professor in the field of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and has an active research career in addition to the responsibilities of the office of the Vice-Chancellor.  He completed his PhD at the Cambridge University in 1986.

The objective of the meeting was to Brief the Vice-Chancellor on the activities of the DeltaCAP Project which is concerned with providing capacity support to realize Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100. DeltaCAP is funded by the government of the Netherlands through Nuffic-NICHE. Delta Alliance Bangladesh Wing, BUET being an active member of the Wing, is the partner in the DeltaCAP project in Bangladesh.

One of the important aspects of the DeltaCAP project is to establish an inter-agency knowledge centre, a ‘Delta Centre’ represented by all partners of the Wing, which will play an important role in capacity development and knowledge co-creation for delta-planning and implementation in Bangladesh. The centre will be a virtual cluster entity which will act as a liaison among the existing and new capacity building entities (e.g. training institutes) of various agencies. DeltaCAP proposed that BUET also implement one of such entities – a ’Delta Centre BUET’ – which will work as a delta knowledge institution and collaborate with other agencies for capacity building and knowledge generation. The feasibility of offering online professional courses and joint degrees in the longer term was also discussed during this meeting.