The NPUST Department of Biomechatronics Engineering and the Department of Biosystems Engineering of Universitas Brawijaya (UB), Indonesia signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on October 15 (2024) to promote development in smart agricultural machinery, biological resources, artificial intelligence, and other fields. At the ceremony which took place on the NPUST campus, Director Jyh Jian Chen of the NPUST Department of Biomechatronics, and Assistant Professor Dimas Firmanda Al Riza of the UB Department of Biosystems signed the agreement on behalf of their institutions. Teachers and students from the department and exchange students from UB were present to witness the occasion.
Director Jyh Jian Chen of the NPUST Department of Biomechatronics pointed out that the NPUST College of Engineering and the UB College of Agricultural Science and Technology signed a memorandum in 2023; and in October of this year, they led a team to UB for a student exchange and discussions on academic cooperation. At the time, they invited UB to Pingtung to take part in an exchange, hoping to strengthen the friendship between the two parties. They also took the opportunity to promoted the establishment of student internship programs while expressing hopes to see more international cooperation and joint projects in the future. Assistant Professor Dimas Firmanda Al Riza conveyed high expectations for interdisciplinary cooperation between the two parties in the fields of agricultural machinery, biological resources and artificial intelligence, and invited students of NPUST to take courses and participate in research at UB.
With this MOU in place, the two parties should see more in-depth cooperation in such fields as automatic detection, smart agricultural machinery, biological resource recycling, and optical electromechanical technology. Together they will promote R&D and the practical application of various technologies, while jointly promoting smart agriculture and innovation in the field of biotechnology.