Last week, the Universitas Indonesia (UI) received the title of the best in Asia for Governance Indicators from the QS Sustainability Ranking 2024. The UI academic community’s awareness of environmental sustainability issues makes them sensitive to various aspects of the environment. Concern for environmental issues became a project idea raised by three UI student teams in the 2023 Voice of Youth Challenge competition initiated by UI through the Institute for the Study and Application of Administrative Sciences (LPPIA) Faculty of Administrative Sciences (FIA) and Danone Indonesia.
As a result, the UI student team came out as winners for three titles in the Voice of Youth Challenge 2023. They are the Bikun Team (3rd Place in the Waste Management Category), the Minum Air Jalan Terus Team (3rd Place in the Hydration Awareness Category), and the Pagi Teknik Team (Favorite Champion Hydration Aware Category). The winners of this competition were announced on Saturday (9/12), at the Aston Priority Simatupang & Conference Center, Jakarta.
The Bikun team consisted of Tsamara Safira and Rahel Sriwahyuni Sinaga who are students from the Public Relations Study Program, UI Vocational Education Program. They won 3rd place in the Waste Management category with the campaign title “Managing Your Waste, Saving the Sustainability of Life”. They ran a campaign on the Cisadane River and collaborated with the local government.
In the Hydration Awareness category, the Minum Air Jalan Terus Team won 3rd place through the “Continuously Drinking Water on the Road” campaign and the Morning Engineering Team received Favorite Champion for the campaign with the theme “Campus Water #HydrationForAchievement”. The Minum Air Jalan Terus Team consisted of FIA UI students, namely Desta Maghfira, Apriza Wiguna, and Stefanus Wijanarko Alexsaputra. Meanwhile, the Pagi Teknik Team consisted of two UI Engineering Faculty students, namely David Fernando Aritonang and Alifya Zhafira Ananda.
The two categories contested in this competition, namely Hydration Awareness and Waste Management, represented two points of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), namely a healthy and prosperous life (good health and well-being) and environmental problems (climate action). The Hydration Awareness category assessed student ideas in the form of activity programs or campaigns related to the importance of maintaining hydration levels in the body to support public health. The Waste Management category highlighted student ideas related to activity programs or campaigns to increase public awareness in minimizing consumption, sorting waste from home, and using the 3R principles (reduce, reuse, recycle) in everyday life.
The competition, which was held from August to December 2023, was attended by 171 participants whose work was all assessed by the jury. The Waste Management Judge was FIA UI Professor, Prof. Dr. Martani Huseini; Corporate Communication Director Danone Indonesia, Arif Mujahidin; Head of the UI Public Relations and KIP Bureau, Dra. Amelita Lusia, M.Sc.; and Senior External Communication Manager Danone Aqua, Krishnu Senjaya.
For Hydration Awareness Judges, it consisted of: Plt. Director of Innovation and Science Techno Park UI, Prasandhya Astagiri Yusuf, S.Si., MT., Ph.D.; Waste4Change CEO, Muhammad Bijaksana Junerosano, S.T.; Danone Aqua External Communication Manager, Gilang Sasmoyo; Chief Editor of Suara.Com, Suwarjono; and Founder of Dreamdelion Indonesia, Alia Noor Anoviar.
The judges determined that the Aksa Team from Diponegoro University won 1st place in the Waste Management category through their work entitled “Me and Trash”. For the Hydration Awareness category, the Unsoed Ngombe Team from Jenderal Soedirman University was named 1st place thanks to the campaign with the theme “Unsoed Ngombe #ngombedisitlur”.
The team’s victory was based on several assessment criteria. According to one of the 2023 Voice of Youth Challenge judges, Dra. Amelita Lusia, M.Si., there are five assessment criteria in this competition. First, originality, innovation and creativity which assess the characteristics or differentiators of ideas from existing programs. Second, feasibility, meaning that the program can be run well in a pilot project. Third, the sustainability program which sees opportunities for program replication and sustainability in the future. Fourth, the program has positive and broad social and environmental impacts. Finally, presentation skills, pitch decks and ideas are presented in an interesting way.
Amelita hopes that this competition can encourage students to produce creative and innovative work that can solve the nation’s problems starting from their immediate environment. “Students are expected to be able to analyze the problems around them and plan a project that can be implemented as a form of their contribution to society,” said Amelita.
