Biodiversity Informatics and co-Operation in Taxonomy for Interactive shared Knowledge base
Biodiversity Informatics and co-Operation in Taxonomy for Interactive shared Knowledge base
BIOTIK
APPLICATION LAUNCH
Thursday, December 20, 2007 at 11.00 am
Venue: The Grand Ashok, Kumara Krupa, High Grounds, Bangalore
We have great pleasure in announcing the official presentation of our BIOTIK (Biodiversity Informatics and co-Operation in Taxonomy for Interactive shared Knowledge base) project, co-financed by the European Commission’s Asia IT & C programme. This project showcases our effort in exploiting Information and Communication Technologies, for studying and conserving environment and also in training fresh capacities.
The BIOTIK project is an initiative in the emerging area of biodiversity informatics and aims at proposing a tool to develop a knowledge base on two major “hotspots” of biodiversity: the rain forests in the Western Ghats of India and the Annamite range rain forests of Lao PDR. The knowledge base, built on a tree species identification system (IDAO), will be instrumental in understanding and assessing the biodiversity of these highly significant areas, as it would provide and facilitate dissemination of scientific knowledge. The knowledge base has been drawn from existing reference herbariums and extensive forest surveys. This application was created by a network of organisations, which includes IFP (French Institute of Pondicherry) – India, CIRAD (Centre de Cooperation Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement) - France, NHN (National Herbarium of Netherlands) - Netherlands and the NUoL (National University of Laos) - Lao PDR.
Under this project, the IFP with a background of more than three decades of ecological work in the Western Ghats region is targeting about 600 tree species to create the knowledge base. The application with the identification system assisted by IDAO software would include a graphical database on character states of the species along with the live and herbarium specimen photographs, illustrations and descriptions (botanical and ecological).
The highlight of the application is that the species descriptions are available in three local languages viz. Kannada, Malayalam and Tamil in addition to English. This could help the on-job training exercises with updated information for the forestry services, help improve the capacity building in taxonomy amongst students and researchers and can also be deployed by grass root level organisations involved in ICT initiatives for Environment.
Developed as an open source web-based application, the knowledge base will be made available on MS Windows, ultra mobile PC (UMPC) and online versions.
We request your esteemed presence in this launching ceremony, which will elucidate the results of a fruitful collaboration between Europe and India.
Contacts:
Dr. Pierre GRARD, Head-Biotik
Dr. B.R. Ramesh, Head-Botany Lab, IFP
Programme
| Welcome Address | Dr. Jean-Pierre Muller, Director, IFP |
| Presidential Address | Mr. Bruno Rouot, Attaché for Science and Technology - Bangalore, French Embassy in India |
| BIOTIK - Overview of the Project | Dr. Pierre Grard, Project Manager – BIOTIK |
| BIOTIK – Demonstration of Results | Dr. B.R. Ramesh, Dr. Pierre Grard, D. Balasubramanian - BIOTIK Team |
| Felicitation Address | Mr. A.K. Verma, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Karnataka Forest Department |
| Vote of Thanks | Dr. Raphael Pelissier, Head, Dept of Ecology, IFP |
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