Aquaculture Education from Turkey to Indonesia by EURASTIP

The aim of my Indonesia visit was building bridge between two countries and continents, knowledge transfer by giving lectures to Indonesian fisheries students and academics . Let them know what is going on on the other side of earth, what is the focus of our researches, how fisheries especially aquaculture studies have been carried out in Europe and Turkey.  The faculty I visited is belong to Airlangga University  (UnAir) . This university is one of the 4000 universities and one of the biggest university in Indonesia. They also have a campus 600 km away from main campus in Banyuwangi city (to read more about my this trip please click here ). My first week i had attended a conference and a workshop as an invited speaker and also have done 2 different anesthesia experiments with Dr. Laksmi and her students (I will write about that later).  In my second week of visit, I had chance to give one hour lecture to last year students in Faculty of Fisheries and Marine...

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is a regional intergovernmental organization comprising ten Southeast Asian countries, which promotes intergovernmental cooperation and facilitates economic, political, security, military, educational, and sociocultural integration among its members and other Asian states. It also regularly engages other states in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond (for more info check wikipedia ). The idea i similar to European Union as far as i understood. ASEAN Committee on Science and Technology organised a workshop on Marine Biotechnology in UnAir and i was an invited speaker in the panel session of this workshop. There were many participants to this workshop which was based on using marine biotechnological for community development and some keynote and invited  speakers  . We all talked about possible biotechnological method which can be apply to improve the power of fisheries and aquaculture community in Indonesia. The fi...

Indonesia is the third biggest aquaculture producer in the World. Annual aquaculture production in 2016 was 16 million 600 thousand ton and its economic value was recorded as 10 billion 303 million USD. Even though, most of the aquaculture production comes from the seaweeds (11 million 600 thousand ton seaweed in 2016 but only 1.3 billion USD economic value) tilapia, milkfish, carp, pangasius and grouper are main aquaculture species here (for more information about aquaculture industry in Indonesia please click the here ). Well, of course shrimp is a main crustacean species they produced 638 thousand ton in 2016.  Figure: Aquaculture production in Indonesia (except seaweed) (graphic from Wordfish) In the marine biotechnology workshop, last week we had discuss that how to improve the income and support the community development by using biotechnology (to read my article about this workshop click here please). I am so happy to be in this big aquaculture count...

Because of some misunderstanding I arrive the University when there has been Exam Break. There are lot of students but either all the classroom are full or students are out. So, they are coming to faculty just for the exam.  While I was in the faculty backyard, I was introduced vice Rector (Rector III) Prof. Dr. Mochammad Amin Alamsjah and we have a nice conservation with him and the Dean of Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Prof. Dr. Mirni. They are always so kind and always trying to do their best.  I asked them any possibilities to give some lecture the week i arrived, they said unfortunately not. But suddenly, Prof. Mochammad asked me if I want to go other campus of UniAir and give some lecture to Aquaculture Department there... I was surprised... I asked how far it is. They said nearby Bali Island, Banyuwangi City, you fly there , takes 1 hour fly. I said why not, while staying here and doing nothing I go there and meet other aquaculture students.Prof. Mirni also...

After an exhausted one long day, I took a rest on Thursday, and Friday we had meet with Dr. Laksmi with whom I will run an experiment on Tilapia fish. We had talked all the details. She introduced me her students who will help us during the experiment. It is interesting, there are more than 15000 island in Indonesia, they even gave away 2 of them to Malaysia. There are more than 4000 universities in Indonesia. In Airlangga University Faculty of Fisheries and Marine, there are 1000 students. That is huge. The faculty was found on 2008 and it has been significantly contributing to university, I believe. They organized “First International Conference of Fisheries and Marine Science” this Saturday and there was nearly 100 oral presentation and 60-70 poster presentation. The conference was run in 6 parallel sessions and they have kindly asked me to moderate aquaculture session together with prof.  Since it was a one day conference and lot of participant, they gave only 10 minu...

First Day in Faculty of Fisheries and Marinei UniA I couldn't sleep well because of the time differences i guess or i slept too much during the day but i woke up at 8:00 am.. Of course I was excited to visit faculty where i will work for next three weeks.  After having a breakfast in the hotel, the car service of the hotel brought me to University. There Ms Hanny welcomed me and took me to Dean office.  On the way of Dean office when we entered to faculty building I saw my name with a welcome message on a screen above to elevator. Then I released they have put this welcome message every TV screen in the faculty. I was surprised and honored of course. Thank you for the warm welcome to the faculty members. They have organised a meeting to introduce me to head of three departments and vice Deans.  First Prof. Mirni who is the Dean of faculty thanked to me to visit their faculty. She explained some information about the faculty and its depa...

*To read first part of article go below please Doha-Jakarta-Surabaya (Third Part) Yes, This was the longest leg of my journey... It means 9 and 30 minutes in an aircraft... But thanks to Qatar Airways, it made this journey comfortable for me... I watched a movie "American Animals" which was about the mistake of some young people.  They served two meals and i liked it :-) Had a nice sleep as well... It was 4 hours time differences from my country so I was landed Jakarta at 15:30 There was no that much time to visit Jakarta city because my last leg of journey would be at 18:40. So I took sky train to change terminal and waited my flight. Unfortunately  my phone was death so i was not able to take photo from the airport...  And finally I arrived Surabaya airport and meet Ms Hanny from International Relationship Office and Lecturer Mr Muhamad. They were waiting for me at the exit of airport with a sign written my name on it :-) Then we went fo...

Unfortunately, not all the place in the earth fits our own health system. Living in an continent and traveling to another might cause serious health issue. Therefore I strongly suggest you to find out the health situation at your destination, especially if you traveling to South East of the Earth... I have read some information but to be sure i called Antalya office of Directorate General of Health for Border and Coastal Areas and asked how should i be prepared before i visit Indonesia. I knew there are some countries where you need to do some vaccine and get prepared beforehand of your travel. The answer of the doctor "come and visit us" Even though there are no serious warning for the country i will visit, still always good to double check, at least that's how i do :-) When i arrived to the doctor's office, after couple of question about my planned travel (where, when, how many days etc), he checked their intranet system and get more information especially for ...

I have been traveled many countries in Europe but this will be first trip to far east for myself. Thats why i am a bit excited. Thanks to EURASTIP After an easy application process (signed papers, contracts, invitations from host university, and acceptance from my faculty), YES! I have received a scholarship from  EURASTIP Project  to visit Airlangga University and give some courses to their Marine and Fisheries Science Students. Airlangga University  is in Surabaya city in Indonesia and it is second oldest university in the country. Despite being officially established by Indonesian Government Regulation in 1954, Universitas Airlangga was first founded in 1948 as a distant branch of the University of Indonesia, with roots dating back to 1913. It started with a medical school and school of dentistry. Now Universitas Airlangga hosts 15 faculties with more than 35,000 students (during the 2015-2016 academic year) and 1,570 faculty members  (wi...