BOHOL – The Department of Agriculture – Special Area for Agricultural Development (DA-SAAD) National Program Management Office (NPMO) Information Technology (IT) Cluster conducted an Advanced Quantum Geographic Information System (QGIS) Training and Introduction to Free and Open Source Mobile Data Gathering System last 5-9 February 2018 in Alta Bohol Garden Resort and Convention Center, San Isidro, Baclayon, Bohol. The training was hosted by DA-RFO 7 and was participated by the SAAD ITs from DA-Regional Field Offices (RFO) CAR, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11 and 12.
In her opening message, SAAD Program Director Bernadette San Juan, discussed the significance of mapping and geotagging in the program. Geo-tagging is a process of adding geographical identification marks like latitude and longitude. It can help users find a wide variety of location-specific information from a device. It also provides users the location of the content of a given picture while geo-mapping is a visual representation of the geographical location of geo-tagged assets layered on top of map or satellite imagery.
Director San Juan also encouraged each IT staff to strive hard to learn the QGIS and Open Data Kit (ODK) applications so that it would be much easier for them to geotag and profile the beneficiaries. She also thanked the DA-Information and Communications Technology Service (DA-ICTS) team for their assistance in the training.
Mr. Marvin Segovia, head of SAAD IT Cluster, presented the rationale and background of the training. He mentioned the importance of the QGIS, ODK, and geotagging in the SAAD Program. According to Mr. Segovia, its importance is to capacitate the SAAD IT staff on creating their maps for their respective provinces. “We need GIS to help analyze and monitor the beneficiaries data visually through maps”.
Ms. Jessa Honeylet Manuel-Fong, IT staff of Region 12, mentioned that the GIS training will be useful for their monitoring. On the other hand, Mr. Francel Mero (Region 8 IT staff), thinks that the training is a powerful tool for the monitoring of beneficiaries. Further, he also thanked the ICTS for teaching them and hoped that they will not forget their learnings during the training.
The training ended with an open forum and the presentation of certificates of the participants as well as the resource speakers.
Writer: Jean Amoloza, SAAD PR & Communications Officer
