On 28th – 30th January 2015, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan (MEXT) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) held “MEXT-JAXA 1st Satellite Data Training Workshop in Africa” in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in collaboration with DRC government. RESTEC supported planning, coordinating, and organizing the training workshop.

The workshop invited 20 participants from DRC and 17 participants from 7 other African countries – Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. RESTEC gave lectures of overview and principle remote sensing and taught how to handle and analyze satellite data including both optical and radar data. JAXA provided the data from the Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) for the participants free of charge.

37 participants successfully completed the training and the Vice Prime Minister Thomas Luhaka Losendjola and Japanese Ambassador to DRC Shigeru Ushio gave certificates to the participants on the final day.

MEXT has a plan to organize an advanced training course in Japan in next Japanese Fiscal Year (April 2015 – March 2016).

Some voices from the participants.

• ●　To say thanks once again for your Invitation and ask you to strengthen our Cooperation.
• ●　Training was very good, even though very short. It has however availed us with knowledge of some of the satellite data products that can be used for various tasks. For future trainings, a bit more time should be added to hands on exercises.
• ●　The training has been useful and comprehensive. I thank you for providing software for evaluating satellite data. I will certainly take advantage and help the institution appreciate use and benefits of satellite data.