The Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Kasetsart University, co-hosted with Japan’s Shibaura Institute of Technology to organize the online academic seminar Global Problem-Based Learning (gPBL) from 23 until 31 August 2021, under the theme “Role of civil engineers in solving problems during and after the Covid-19 Pandemic”.
The project this year has been successfully accomplished through a collaboration among 5 institutions in 3 countries: the Shibaura Institute of Technology (SIT) from Japan, the National University of Civil Engineering from Vietnam, and the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Suranaree University of Technology (SUT) and Kasetsart University from Thailand. The seminar started as an online program for the first time in 2020, with a total of 90 participants. The number of participants increased to 119 this year.
The gPBL seminar focuses on providing engineering problems to undergraduate students to practise and experiment, with an opportunity for Master’s and Ph.D. students to participate. The activities include online lectures, knowledge sharing of graduate students’ research, company visits (online) and project presentations. The students are encouraged to be engaged in acquiring problem-solving capabilities, systems thinking, and systems management skills through this problem-solving experience, as well as building friendships among fellow students from different institutes.