BANDUNG, itb.ac.id – The Ganeshaprise team from the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) made achievements at international level at the regional Hult Prize Foundation held in Australia on 12-13 April 2019. The team consisted of Immanuel Deo Juvente Hasian Salalahi (Electric Power Alumni, STEI 2015), Albert Gianta Margono (Architectural Alumni, SAPPK 2015), and Pasasa Fridericiana Marie (SBM 2021).
The Hult Prize itself is a start up competition that aims to create business ideas to solve world problems. This year, the theme of the Hult Prize is Youth Employment, that is how to create business ideas to provide ten thousand jobs for young people for the next ten years.
In the competition, the Ganeshaprise team offered a solution, which was the idea of making a digital platform based on the potential of 1,902 villages in Indonesia by emphasizing the growth of the villages. One example is maximizing natural beauty to create employment opportunities in the villages. This platform is expected to become a medium that connects tourists with potential villages.
The Ganeshaprise team has expectations that with this platform, there will be 226 potential villages in Indonesia and 45,200 jobs will be available for the next ten years. Their start-up is called “DoSoon” which refers to the word hamlet.
Marie and her team have prepared for this competition carefully for quite a long time. In December 2018, they received an announcement that they passed the first stage. They had 4 months to prepare for the competition material carefully. “Because we are from different departments, it is not uncommon for us to experience things like schedule differences and different views, but we made this as a challenge until finally we became a team that could win in this stage, “Marie said.
Thanks to the creative ideas, willingness and perseverance that they had, they can win first place at the regional finalist stage. After this stage, they will take part in the business incubation process for 6 weeks. Then, they will follow the final stage in London in July 2019. The Ganeshaprise team is the only representative of ITB and Indonesia which won first place at the regional level. This regional level is held in 30 different countries, and each regional winner will be sent to London. They will be guided by the best instructors, professors and CEOs in their respective fields, to further sharpen the ideas and systems designed. Six finalists will be selected to compete in the Global Final Round in Boston, September 2019.
“His rivals are tough, especially because many of our opponents have master’s degrees. We did not expect to win. Plus the pitching time given is only 6 minutes. However, thank God, we finally succeeded, “said Immanuel Deo, chairman of the Ganeshaprise team.
The Ganeshaprise team hopes that they can win in the final later so that they can implement this idea in Indonesia because this is also the motivation for them to participate in this competition. “Pray for us so that we can name Indonesia in the Hult Prize, London,” Albert said.
“Through a government program that promotes funds to increase revenue through the tourism sector, we believe that the start-up of ‘DoSoon’ will be supported by government agencies, independent agencies, and ITB itself which since 2015 has changed the direction of ‘Entrepreneurial University’,” added Marie.
Original source: https://www.itb.ac.id/news/read/57070/home/tim-ganeshaprise-itb-berhasil-raih-juara-di-hult-prize-regional-australia