Closing Ceremony for Smart City, Village, and Region (SCVR) Summer Course 2021 was successfully held at July 23rd, 2021 by Department of Development Geography, Faculty of Geography, Universitas Gadjah Mada. This summer course was supported by Smart City, Village, and Region Study Group and Master Program of Regional Development, Faculty of Geography, Universitas Gadjah Mada. The summer course ran from July 6th to 23rd 2021. The Dean of Faculty of Geography, Dr. Andri Kurniawan, M.Si., mentioned that this summer course is special because it goes fully online due to the pandemic situation. Nevertheless, the Summer Course received positive responses as shown by the numbers of the participants.
Dr. Rini Rachmawati, Coordinator of Smart City, Village, and Region Summer Course explained that 76 participants from 13 countries managed to finish the course and came from Indonesia, France, Romania, India, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, Malaysia, Germany, Bangladesh, Nepal, The Netherlands, and Finland. She also added that not merely concepts and theories, but the participant also attained implementations, and cases study from numerous countries. Furthermore, through field trip activity, participants were brought the implementation of Smart City in Yogyakarta city and the charms and beauty of its culture. Participants also successfully followed individual assignment and group assignment and regularly uploaded to Google Classroom and eLOK platforms. Lecturer’s materials also could be downloaded from those platforms
For the closing, committee organized Smart City, Village, and Region Discussion on several topics like Smart Governance & Smart Branding, Smart Mitigation for Disaster Risk Reduction/Climate Change/Pandemics, and Smart Coast – Resilient & Sustainable Coastal Urban Development . Smart Mitigation and Smart Coast was a novel topic at the occasion. It’s also new in the smart city discussion either nationally or globally, as Dr. Rini Rachmawati said. Participants presented their idea on those topics to the lecturer and evaluator. The discussion was not only attended by the participants and lecturers but also the non-participating students and public.
This summer course involved 25 lecturers from various universities across the globe such as Universitas Gadjah Mada; Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands; University of Helsinki, Finland; Université de Bourgogne, France; University of Bucharest, Romania; Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand; Silpakorn University, Thailand; Vietnamese German University, Vietnam; National Economics University, Vietnam; National Institute of Education, Singapore; University of Malaya, Malaysia; Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia; University of Yangon, Myanmar; Banaras Hindu University, India, and also from Shippensburg University, USA dan The University of Melbourne, Australia. Dr. Rini Rachmawati mentioned that after this summer course, the collaboration would be continued by publishing book on Smart City, Village, and Region. This was also a great chance to establish International Forum of Smart City, Village, and Region (IFSCVR) with the lecturers and participants and those who are interested in collaboration on research, education, and community service regarding the Smart City, Village, and Region.