Photo: The Foundation acted as a sponsor in the competition hosted by AKPY Yogyakarta
YOGYAKARTA – Attending classes, participating in organizations, and joining in and out-campus events help students build creative thinking skills and make innovations that enrich the evolution of mankind. These creations, of course, need a space where they can be further developed and implemented.
As part of these spaces, Yogyakarta Agricultural Community Academy (AKPY) came up with a “creativity and innovation battle”, which it named Kompetensi Inovasi Kreativitas Vokasi or MOTIVASI.
Candidates sparred ideas that would best improve the local palm oil industry at this hybrid event on Tuesday (6/13). They were split into 22 teams from 9 universities — AKPY, Yogyakarta Fishery Academy, Yogyakarta Stiper Agricultural Institute, Indonesia Open University, Indonesia Palm Oil Technological Institute, Brawijaya University, Raden Intan Lampung State Islamic University, as well as Muhammadiyah University’s Palembang and Surakarta branches.
The contest has a purpose to push student creativity and skills to new heights and let candidates hone soft and hard skills useful for their future, said event committee leader Olivia Elfatma in the opening speech.
“MOTIVASI started out as a small-scale event in AKPY which, through the encouragement of our sole sponsor Korindo Foundation, expanded to include other schools. Now we have 22 groups competing in the third season, and we expect more of them in the coming year,” Elfatma said.
Two of the teams were heavily engrossed in discussion as they waited for their turn
Contest organizers and Korindo Foundation’s general secretary Seo Jeongsik in one photo
Korindo’s support reflects the firm’s emphasis on using creativity and innovation to solve problems. “Inventing something can be an effective learning process for an individual to develop and be able to demonstrate original thinking and the ability to elaborate on an idea,” said Korindo Foundation’s general secretary Seo Jeongsik.
The Foundation’s general manager Setiyono was made a judge in this online competition. He and the rest of the judging panel were granted the right to ask questions to and assess pitches from 12 teams that had passed the preliminary rounds.
AKPY vice director Dr. Idum Satya Santi then shared with the audience how proud she was of what her students accomplished through the event.
“I’m happy with what MOTIVASI has become… it began with a couple of young people who started thinking outside the box and found these great ideas, which can be further studied and analyzed to produce new products and technologies and ways of thinking. We must provide a channel for this creativity before it is misused.”
On top of a cash prize worth millions of rupiah, the winning team will have their manuscripts published in AKPY’s journal. (PR)
