MIRRA – MIRRA Holds its First Monthly Meetup

27/01/2019

MIRRA launched its first Monthly Meetup by hosting two representatives from MIT’s Global Engineering and Research Lab (GEAR Lab) last Sunday. This week’s meetup was the first in a series that will take place over the course of the coming year at MIRRA’s Amman office.

Dr. Samer Talozi started off the event by welcoming the days participants and giving some background on MIRRA.

Following Dr. Talozi’s presentation, Maram Zaid, MIRRA’s Irrigation and Agriculture Department Manager discussed the organization’s history, the scope of its projects and touched specifically on the nature of MIRRA’s collaboration with MIT’s GEAR Lab. MIRRA is currently in the last of year of three-year USAID-funded project with MIT’s GEAR Lab entitled “Ultra-Low Energy Drip Irrigation for MENA Countries.”

MIT’s representative, Jeffery Costello, built of off Al-Zeid’s presentation and dove into more technical aspects of the project’s research. Costello described the research sites, giving the audience a sense of the numerous variables each site brought to the research. He also gave a statistical overview of project’s distribution uniformity tests.

A representative from the National Drip Irrigation Co along with Dr. Naem from the National Agricultural Research Center followed up and elaborated on the applications of ultra-low energy drip emitters across Jordan.

Sunday’s meetup concluded with an open discussion in which representatives from regional and international NGOs discussed their projects around Jordan.

The meetup gave MIRRA and MIT a chance hear feedback from local stakeholders, but also fostered a wider synergy and collaboration between organizations operating in Jordan.

Stay tuned to MIRRA’s LinkedIn page for announcements on February’s meetup.

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