How does the IAF ensure that its member-countries use remote-sensing data effectively to help their farmers, fishermen, city planners, and others?
It is an excellent question. First of all, we are not doing enough. We are an information-exchange organisation. We attempt to create and nurture opportunities for cooperation and information-exchange. But you touched on a very important point which I take very seriously. The workshop we are attending today, the U.N.-IAF workshop on space technology for sustainable development towards food security, is an example of that. The workshop was started 17 years ago but we are constantly putting a new emphasis on it. This year’s workshop being held at the National Remote-Sensing Agency (NRSA), Hyderabad, is an excellent example because the team at the NRSA is impressive and it has received tremendous experience from the Regional Remote-Sensing Centres [in India].What we are trying to do in these workshops is to bring individuals who are keen on learning from those challenges and expose them to one another so that they could develop relationships to build a dialogue to help their countries to
