UGM students were the winner of the Sembcorp Marine’s Green Wave Environmental Care Competition 2018, held in Sembcorp Marine, Admiralty Yard, Singapore, on 1 November 2018. The chemistry engineering students team consisting of Timothy Elia Tallulembang, Ganang Dino Utama, and Muhammad Fahmi Abdul Aziz beat 11 finalists from ASEAN universities, such as National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technology University, and Institut Teknologi Sepuluh November.
The prestigious competition organised by multinational corporation, Sembcorp Marine and Shell Eastern Trading International, was the first one joined by the UGM team. “This is the first competition where UGM participates in and we became one of the Indonesian representatives,” Timothy said.
Timothy said the Eco-Board UGM team earned the first prize award after carrying the idea of environmentally-friendly particle board which was produced from oil palm waste for the competition.
Timothy said in a release sent to journalists on Tuesday (11/12) that in the competition, the juries came from leading institutions such as NUS, NTU, National Environment Agency, Singapore Environment Council, and other government agencies. The event was an annual international event which raised the theme of “Enjoying trees in their natural habitat” in 2018.
Ganang said other participants looked very confident with their health prototype equipment, which cost tens of millions. But the ideas and creativity of the UGM students finally paid off. “The jury eventually named us the winner and we were entitled to receive cash prizes worth S$10,000 as well as opportunity to do apprenticeship in Shell for one month,” he said.
Ganang explained the design they offered was in line with the theme and the idea was acceptable to the jury. “The prospect of the product is apparent, marketable, and feasible,” added Timothy.
In his opinion, this international achievement was not apart from the role of the supervising lecturers, Wiratni, S.T., M.T., Ph.D., and Budhijanto, ST., MT., Ph.D., (Chemical Engineering lecturers) as well as Dr. Agr. Sc. Ragil Widyorini, S.T., M.T. (Faculty of Forestry).