Stories

In Pictures: Desert Knowledge Precinct Tour

Sept 07, 2020

Services: DKA Solar Centre, Desert Knowledge Precinct

The Desert Knowl­edge Precinct host­ed dozens of vis­i­tors as part of desertS­MART Eco­Fair, Cen­tral Aus­trali­a’s pre­mier sci­ence and sus­tain­abil­i­ty event organ­ised by the Arid Lands Envi­ron­ment Centre!

Around 45 vis­i­tors engaged in a guid­ed walk­ing tour of the Precinct on 8 August 2020, explor­ing sci­ence and cul­ture on Arrernte coun­try as part of Nation­al Sci­ence Week.

The three-part tour was deliv­ered by the four organ­i­sa­tions based at the Desert Knowl­edge Precinct. Knowl­edge relat­ing to renew­able ener­gy, satel­lite com­mu­ni­ca­tions and local cul­ture was shared by Ekisti­ca, the Cen­tre for Appro­pri­ate Tech­nol­o­gy, DKA, and Batch­e­lor Insti­tute of Indige­nous Ter­tiary Education.

The tour began at the DKA Solar Cen­tre with a Wel­come to Precinct by Harold Furber, the Precinct’s Elder-in-Residence.

Atten­dees were then guid­ed through the Solar Cen­tre by Paul Rod­den, Senior Project Man­ag­er (Renew­ables) at Ekisti­ca. Rod­den shared his exper­tise in renew­able ener­gy and pho­to­volta­ic tech­nol­o­gy with the enthused group.

Pho­to cred­its: Andre Sawenko / Arid Lands Envi­ron­ment Centre

After explor­ing the Solar Cen­tre, the group trooped over to a van­tage point of the satel­lite ground sta­tions at the CfAT area of the Precinct.

Pho­to cred­its: Andre Sawenko / Arid Lands Envi­ron­ment Centre

At the site, they were greet­ed by CfAT CEO Peter Rene­han, who described the site’s func­tion and capa­bil­i­ties. Rene­han explained how the site sig­nif­i­cant­ly improved Australia’s capa­bil­i­ty in envi­ron­men­tal mon­i­tor­ing and dis­as­ter man­age­ment, cit­ing swifter respons­es to bush­fire man­age­ment stem­ming from instan­ta­neous data pro­cure­ment as an exam­ple of a key appli­ca­tion of the technology.

Pho­to cred­its: Andre Sawenko / Arid Lands Envi­ron­ment Centre

The group then made their way over to the Precinct café, where the final pre­sen­ta­tions from DKA and Batch­e­lor Insti­tute were deliv­ered. DKA CEO Dan Tyson spoke of DKA and the Precinc­t’s pur­pose; and BIITE Project Man­ag­er Angela Har­ri­son shared infor­ma­tion about cam­pus facil­i­ties, and the Lan­guages and Lin­guis­tics department’s work.

Pho­to cred­its: Andre Sawenko / Arid Lands Envi­ron­ment Centre

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