According to data from the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) in 2021, Indonesia is the country in 6th position with the highest death rate due to diabetes in the world, namely 236,711 people. When viewed on a national scale, DKI Jakarta is the province in Indonesia that has the highest prevalence of diabetes sufferers, namely 3.4% (Indonesian Ministry of Health, 2018). The high death rate due to diabetes in Indonesia has encouraged five students from the Faculty of Public Health (FKM) and the Faculty of Engineering (FT) of the Universitas Indonesia (UI) to create an innovation called Centung (Smart Calculating Centong).
This innovation is a form of their concern for the lack of public awareness of the urgency of diabetes. The five students are members of the Centung Student Creativity Program Team for Innovative Work (PKM-KI) which consists of Tsabitah Addinni, Adia Reza Khaleda, Anggrianita Meyline, Made Della Riskita Dewi, and Umar Maulana. “Public awareness of the high prevalence of diabetes in Indonesia is still very low. In fact, the fact is that diabetes sufferers are very at risk of developing complications which can lead to death. If this is left untreated, it will affect the health status of the people in Indonesia,” said Tsabitah as team leader.
The innovation created by the PKM-KI Centung Team is a digital scale in the form of a ladle designed using the ESP32 T-Display as a microcontroller and equipped with a 1.9 inch LCD screen, IMU sensor and 1s LiPO battery. Then, it is streamlined by using a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) and integrated into the Centung application.
Centung is based on the culture of Indonesian people who really like rice and place rice as their main daily staple food. Not to mention that there is a stigma attached to Indonesian society, namely “you are not full if you haven’t eaten rice”. In fact, white rice has a relatively high glycemic index, namely 73. A food that has a high glycemic index contains carbohydrates that can be digested quickly by the body, thereby causing blood sugar levels to rise more quickly.
Adia said that there have been many efforts to prevent and treat diabetes in Indonesia, such as doing physical activity, avoiding unhealthy behavior such as smoking and consuming alcohol, and carrying out regular blood tests. Apart from that, there is one practical thing that people can do to prevent and manage diabetes, namely by adjusting their daily diet.
However, these efforts do not appear to have been completely successful in reducing the prevalence of diabetes in Indonesia. Therefore, efforts need to be made to regulate and control the amount of rice that enters the body per day, in order to control blood sugar levels in the body and the risk of diabetes in Indonesia can be significantly reduced.
Together with supervisor Triyanti, SKM, MSc., the innovation initiated by this team received a positive response from the community, because it can be used easily and practically. To use it, the user can first open the Centung application, then press the pair button and select Wifi with the name “CENTUNG” in the cellphone/laptop settings to connect the device to the application. After successfully connecting, users can enter the Centung application and continue with initial registration. After that, the user can press the power button on the Centung tool and then select the profile according to the application.
Afterwards, the user can take the rice using the Centung tool and then press the “weigh” button to weigh the rice. Then, users can reopen the Centung application to record, monitor and evaluate daily rice consumption. Apart from being easy and practical to use, the Centung tool also has considerable potential to produce benefits in various aspects.
“Apart from being able to support diabetes sufferers to prevent complications, from a social aspect, Centung’s innovation can help increase public awareness of the importance of maintaining body health, especially from diabetes,” said Madel. Meanwhile, Anggi also added that the Centung device also has the advantage of being mass produced on an industrial scale, and can reduce the cost of treating diabetes sufferers, thus Centung has the opportunity to contribute to national development. Apart from that, Centung also has opportunities in the education sector as Centung can be an initial step in expanding the development of science and technology to support the creation of various innovations in preventive health efforts.
Currently, Centung has passed the tool and application testing stage and is then ready to be socialized to introduce Centung tools and applications to the public. This outreach will be carried out via social media on the Instagram channel @centung.id from November to December 2023. “We hope that Centung can be useful for diabetes sufferers and all levels of Indonesian society. Apart from that, it is the right solution to reduce the death rate due to diabetes in Indonesia in order to achieve the highest level of public health, in order to build a better Indonesian nation,” said Umar.
Author: PKM-KI Centung Team | Editor: Maudisha
