Through the socio-entrepreneurial spirit, UGM is committed to minimising the gap between the lives of urban and rural communities so smart and resilience village development is one of UGM excellences so far. Through a cooperation with Six Capital, Singapore, UGM has initiated and realised its mission to developing research and innovation in digital technology that aims at developing the culture of innovation and collaboration between UGM members of academic community.
Rector of UGM, Prof. Ir. Dwikorita Karnawati, M.Sc., Ph.D., said the collaboration was put into form in the Digital Innovation Center. In the early stages, the digital innovation center covers research in five streams, such as personal digital healthcare, geospatial mapping, big data analytic, center of excellence of financial technology, and smart village (DesaApp).
“Under the coordination of Vice-Rector for Cooperation and Alumni, a number of units of UGM are very much involved in the research and innovation, including Geodetical and Geomatics Department, Electrical and Informatics Engineering Department, Geological Engineering Department, Faculty of Geography, Faculty of Medicine, UGM Academic Hospital, Faculty of Economics and Business, and Faculty of Law as well as PT. Gamatechno that is a company belonging to UGM,” said Dwikorita on Thursday (29/12).
She added to reaIise the research and innovation projects, SixCap Singapore has given donation for the development of Digital Innovation Center in the form of: (1) construction of infrastructure of Digital Innovation Center building worth US$ 6 million, (2) research and innovation projects in digital innovation worth Rp7,680,000,000 with 5 research streams, (3) peatland mapping with LiDAR technology as vast as 110,000 Ha at Pulau Padang, Kepulauan Meranti regency, Province of Riau Islands worth US$665,000, (4) facilities grant of 68 computer units for Center of Excellence for Financial Trading that are allocated at Pertamina Tower, Faculty of Economics and Business worth Rp 4,000,000,000, and (5) donation has been agreed worth US$ 1 million as innovation fund for the downstreaming of starts-up company in digital technology that has been developed by Innovative Academy of UGM, to support government’s program in the creation of 1,000 technopreneurs, (6) distribution of free 1,000 smartphones to rural communities in the Province of Yogyakarta Special Region, especially Gunungkidul and Bantul in order to give access to lower level society to technology, especially in preventive healthcare program.
“Of all those research and innovation projects, NusaHealth (www.nusahealth.id) program that is a personal digital healthcare application based on smartphone has been socialised to society as one of the frameworks to educate the people on healthy life style,” she added.
Apart from NusaHealth, Desa apps that has been developed with Faculty of Agriculture and PT. Gamatechno is an application dedicated to rural communities and farmers in order to improve their welfare through facilitating information access to prices of agricultural commodities, plant pests, consultation with agricultural experts, and planting season. Apart from development of various digital applications, UGM through PT. Gamatechno along with SixCap have established a Joint Venture, PT. SixCap Gama Teknologi with shareholder PT Gamatechno 51% and SixCap Singapore 49%. The goal of the Joint Venture Company establishment is to include the downstreaming process of research and innovation products that have been produced of the cooperation between UGM – SixCap Singapore.
The research and innovation outcomes between UGM – SixCap have been presented in the Indonesia Economic Forum in November 2016 and will be presented in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, from 17-20 January 2017, where UGM would have the chance to give presentation in the special session (Indonesia Session) cooperation between CNBC-SixCap and will be broadcast through TV CNBC worldwide. The main goal of the participation of UGM in the WEF is apart from introducing Indonesia, also to promote innovation results of UGM to major industrial partners that join the forum.
Meanwhile, signing of the Letter of Intent of the innovation fund donation for the development of Start-ups at UGM was conducted on Tuesday (27/12) between Rector of UGM, Prof Ir. Dwikorita Karnawati, M.Sc., Ph.D, and directors of SixCap Singapore, Patrick Teng, witnessed by Governor of the Province of Yogyakarta Special Region, Sri Sultan HB X, Vice-Rector for Cooperation and Alumni, Dr. Paripurna., SH., M.Hum., LLM and Vice-Rector for Human Resource and Assets, Prof. Dr. Ir. Budi Wignyosukarto., Dip. HE.