Latvian Ambassador to India Artis Bertulis was in Bangalore today to meet with the Chief Secretary of Karnataka and other officials of the state to discuss areas of cooperation between Latvia and Karnataka. This is Mr Bertulis' first visit to Bangalore and discussed issues of cooperation in ICT, cinema and education. Speaking to Indianexpress.com, he said Riga, the capital of Latvia is called the Europe's capital of free wifi, and Latvia had experience running such city level free wifi systems. He hoped that cities in India could learn from the Riga experience. He said that Latvia was the greenest country in Europe, with more than 50% of its territory under forests and there was a huge expertise built around tracking forest resources using drones, to the extent that even mapping had been done to a 'tree level'. He says that such technologies could be used in urban settings like Bangalore for tree mapping, helping policy makers get over the issue of poor data or delayed data particularly on issues related to environment. Bertulis said that Latvia was among the first countries to do a 'drone jump' wherein a drone could pick up a person from a building or an elevation. This tech could be useful in fire fighting and for saving people in emergencies. Bertulis is on an exploratory trip to Bangalore and is meeting with stakeholders ranging from movie companies to travel industry.
