A proverb once said to pursue knowledge in China. One Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR) alumnus who won a scholarship from LPDP to study at the National University of Singapore (NUS) did the same. Muhammad Fairuzzuddin Zuhair is an alumnus of the Faculty of Science and Technology (FST) UNAIR. He won second place in the LPDP Business Growth Plan 2023 event in the general category. This achievement led him to get a scholarship to attend a short course in Singapore on Monday, January 8, 2024.

As reported in the interview, the competition took place in August. In this case, Fairuz as the CEO of PT Lentera Alam Nusantara brought the business idea "Markas Walet" to compete in this competition. The competition consisted of several stages, starting from the submission of proposals and business plans at the regional, provincial, and national levels. As many as 6438 start-ups participated in this competition, and Fairuz and his team made it to the top 20 to present in Jakarta.

"Alhamdulillah, after going through the pitching or presentation process, the Markas Walet team won second place in the LPDP business growth plan competition in 2023 in the general category," said the UNAIR alumnus.

Furthermore, Fairuz said that his idea focuses on technological innovation for swallow houses. In this case, he initiated the role of the Internet of Things in the form of a swallow population counter camera equipped with temperature, humidity, light intensity, and harmony sensors to increase the swallow population.

"So this is our work that we have developed and made into an application that can now be downloaded on the Google Play Store. This application serves to facilitate swallow farmers in monitoring and controlling the condition of swallow houses. So, swallow houses can be better monitored and their development can be known, and can even do forecasting related to conditions in the swallow building," he explained.

Innovation Challenge

Achieving this award was no easy feat for Fairuz and her team. In addition to the novelty offered, the technological innovation must also be clear. Fairuz strived to create an app design that was user-friendly and could be understood by the panelists or judges.

"In this case, we have to make sure our application is reliable and executable, is there a demand in the market or not? So, communicating this idea is not easy, because the presentation time given is also very short, only about 7 minutes. So, like it or not, we have to deliver it clearly, and firmly and get the point across to them. And of course, this was not a one-night exercise, but almost a few weeks before," said Fairuz.

Despite the challenges, the UNAIR alumni did not expect to win second place in this prestigious LPDP competition. He was also grateful that his hard work in preparing everything to advance in this competition paid off.

"What we are most grateful for is one of the prizes in the form of an opportunity to take a short course at the National University of Singapore for approximately 2 weeks. This is a golden opportunity for us to go international and learn more about technology development," he told UNAIR News.

"We hope that all the insights gained can be implemented in the business world, especially in the guardianship ecosystem that we are currently working on. We will utilize the opportunity to network, find new mentors, and seek funding from Singapore so that our company can grow even more in the future," added Fairuz at the end of the interview session.

Writer: Aidatul Fitriyah

Editor: Khefti Al Mawalia

Source : alumni.unair.ac.id/site/article/read/2461/alumnus-unair-raih-juara-ii-business-growth-p.html