PDC Updates | Aug 29, 2008
Certificate Presentation
PDC Executive Director Ray Shirkhodai, right, presents a certificate to Mr. Hoang Duc Minh to mark the completion of his summer internship. Chief Information Officer Chris Chiesa, left, supervised Minh’s work at PDC.

Mr. Hoang Duc Minh, a student at Vietnam’s Water Resources University in Hanoi this fall, completed a summer internship at Pacific Disaster Center on August 22.

Certificate of Achievement
This certificate achievement is the first to document a human resource exchance between PDC and Vietnam’s Water Resources University.

The focus of Minh’s internship was to characterize natural hazards in Vietnam, especially those related to typhoons and flooding in the central part of the country. Additionally, he worked with PDC analysts to learn about Geographic Information Systems (GIS) applications, completing both online and hands-on training courses during his stay.

On his last day at PDC, Minh gave a presentation to PDC staff and management which featured the work he had just finalized concerning the type, frequency and severity of natural hazard events in Vietnam. He included a brief and profusely illustrated overview of his country’s social and political history, its geography, geology and meteorology, as well.

Mr. Hoang Duc Minh, who is planning a career in disaster management in Vietnam, is the first participant in a program of possible staff exchanges and internships envisioned at the time that PDC, University of Hawaii and the Water Resources University signed a memorandum of understanding on May 19, 2008.

Additional Web-accessible stories about PDC-Vietnam cooperation:

  • A project profile of PDC’s work with Vietnam’s disaster managers includes updates and images.
  • PDC opened a project office in Hanoi in May 2008.
  • PDC participated in an APEC Dialogue in Vietnam, April 24–25, 2008.
  • PDC presented an International Workshop on “Best practices” in Disaster Management in Vietnam, November 2007.
  • Two powerful typhoons made landfall in Southeast Asia in November 2007.
  • Typhoon Lekima severely damaged central Vietnam in October 2007.
Some links may become inactive over time. If you find a broken or inoperative link to an external resource, you may want to search at that resource for the relevant information. If you find that a link referring to a pdc.org page fails, please inform the PDC Webmaster.