The Ministry of Public Works and Housing of The Repulbic of Indonesia on Thursday, 11th August 2016, held an inaguration for their staffs who enroll in master degree programs at the Faculty of Engineering UGM this 2016-2017 Academic Year.  A lecture was delivered by Kepala Badan Pengembangan SDM of the Ministry on this occation. The staffs receive scholarship provided by the Ministry for the period of four semesters. They enroll in five master programs at the Faculty of Engineering UGM: the Master of Engineering in Natural Disaster Management (MTPBA), MSTT, MSTB, MPA2L, and MTG. The first four programs are master programs at the Departement of Civil and Environmental Engineering, where as the latter is a new program at the Departement of Geology.

After the lecture, the new students joined an outbound program, which lasted until today, Friday, 12th August 2016.

MTPBA welcomes twelve new students of the 2016-2017 Academic Year. This is the least number of intakes in the history of MTPBA. The new students come from Ministry of Public Work and Housing (9 students) and AUN/SEED-Net (3 students). The AUN/SEED-Net students come from Cambodia, Malaysia, and Myanmar. The new students are the 16th intake of MTPBA.

MTPBA organized a welcome gathering to mark the first day of the new students enrollment on Monday, August 8, 2016.

Three graduates from MTPBA joined the October Graduation Ceremony held on July 27, 2016. They are (1) Ryan Rizaldi Umar, (2) Tifani Restianti, and (3) Fricilia Puji Lestary. Many other students of 2014 Batch have in fact completed their study in this month. They will join the next graduation to be held in October 2016.

From left to right: Ryan Rizaldi Umar, Fricilia Puji Lestary, Tifani Restianti, Istiarto.

Starting from September 16, 2013, the Master Programme in Natural Disaster Management (MPBA) became the Master of Engineering in Natural Disaster Management (MTPBA). This change signifies the establishment of MTPBA as a master programme, separated from the master program in civil engineering, and reiterates that MTPBA focuses on the engineering aspect of natural disaster management.

Along with this new name, the official website and email address has changed accordingly. The new website address is https://mpba.ugm.ac.id and the new email address is mtpba@ugm.ac.id. The old website and email address will remain active for sometime.

Watch the photographs slide show by clicking this link.

MPBA has successfully organized The First Regional Conference on Natural Disaster in Yogyakarta, January 22-23, 2014. Around 130 participants were present in the conference. They came from not only the AUN/SEED-Nets Member Institutions and Japanese Supporting Universities, but also from other parties. Some MPBA alumni were also present in the conference.

The keynote speech was given by Mr. Taufik Widjoyono, Senior Advisor for Minister of Public Works for Integrated Development, and Prof. Hiroyasu OHTSU, Vice Dean, Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University, Japan. The keynote speech from the Indonesia National Agency for Disaster Management was canceled due to last minute change of the speaker’s agenda in which he had been dispatched to Mount Sinabung disaster site on the day before the conference.

There were 45 papers presented in the conference. The presenters came from various countries such as Indonesia Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. List of the papers can be read from https://mpba.ugm.ac.id/en/rcnd-2014/.

After the conference had been officially closed, the MI delegates and JSU professors visited Ratu Boko Temple to enjoy the spectacular view of the temple and enjoyed the dinner at the temple compound. It was unfortunate that the participants could not observe the splendid sunrise due to the weather.

RCND is a continuing series of regional conferences, one of the annual programs of AUN/SEED-Net. The next RCND will be held in Yangoon, Myanmar, on September 29-30, 2014.

MPBA student of Batch XI (2011), Karlina (center on the front row) has recently attended a short course on Climate Change Downscaling Approches and Applications, held in AIT Bangkok on 10-20 November 2012. The course was organized by UNU in collaboration with APN and AIT. It is an annual event held by UNU in promoting awareness on climate change.to young generation in Asia-Pacific region. It was the first time that the course was held outside Japan. Previous two course were held in Tokyo in 2010 and 2011.

Participants came from countries in the Asia-Pacific region such, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Iindia, Bangladesh, Australia, Tonga, Japan, China, and Indonesia. The sixty participants were mostly masters and Ph.D. students. lectures were given by experts in downscaling from Japan, Australia, USA, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, and Vietnam.