Varsity displays digital tree at Garden Show

University of Bahrain has taken a ‘digital route’ at the Bahrain International Garden Show (BIGS). They have displayed a digital tree at BIGS, being held at the Exhibition Centre here, to spread awareness through the use of technology.

According to Dean, College of Engineering, University of Bahrain, Dr. Fuad Al Ansari, they have six trees and those trees are automatically linked to the screens.

“When a visitor comes here and stands in front of the screen, he starts answering questions related to some locally grown trees like mangoes. It immediately shows on the screen if his answer is correct or not. If all the answers are correct, the tree will start blooming and giving fruit,” he explained.

“If the answer is 50-50, the tree might stay as it is or might decay a bit but if the answers are really bad the tree will start dying.”

“The questions are random and if another visitor comes after one person, the questions would be different. People are interacting with the tree. They would want to make the tree bloom by having the correct answers,” Dr. Ansari pointed out.

He informed that they would provide a new portal to the National Initiative for Agriculture Development (NIAD).

“It is a home page where all the people who are interested in agriculture, botany and landscape can upload their research,” Dr. Ansari said.

“They can also upload questions and then they would get answers from experts. So it’s like an interactive platform for all the people, who are interested in agriculture in Bahrain,” he elaborated.

There is also a kids section at the University of Bahrain’s pavilion. In the kids section, among other attractions, they will be taught how to trim the tree.

“There is a story section where they are told some of the stories from Arab tradition and there are always subliminal messages in the stories of how to take care of the trees,” Dr. Ansari added.    

Ibtisam Albutti from College of Science University of Bahrain said that it was all part of the awareness programme aiming at telling the people how to make Bahrain greener.

Yasmeen Yaqoobi, of Bayan School said that they were exhibiting at BIGS to spread awareness on how to beautify the schools and make them greener.