The Universitas Gadjah Mada’s (UGM) Mino team has won a world competition in food security innovation during the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI) from 26-29 October 2016 in Cambodia. They became the first winner after beating 200 teams from around the world.
The Mino team with members Muhammad Nabil Satria Faradis and Fajar Sidik Abdullah from Mechanical Engineering and Untari Febrian Ramadhani from Faculty of Economics and Business won the championship for their MINO Microbubbles technology. They beat the Cambodian and Malaysian teams in the finals.
“(We) were very proud to have carried the name of the UGM at the international forum,” said Untari on Monday (31/10).
Untari said in the competition held by USAID and YSEALI, all participants had to find solutions to problems in agriculture, aquaculture and fisheries. Finalists all joined a boot camp in Singapore for a month as well as receiving training from technology giants, Cisco and Intel, for further solution development. In the finals they presented technology based solution that were developed in the ASEAN Ministerial meeting for science and technology.
As a prize, the Mino UM team was entitled to making a visit to Austin, Texas, one of the technologies centres in the U.S. in March 2017.
Microbubble Generator
Untari said the microbubble generator was developed to boost the fish production. This technology was able to increase the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water than can accelerate the fish growth. Their research proved that the technology can increase the quality of the water and able to distribute oxygen in the pond maximally.
“The fish that is produced is heavier, and the harvest is shorter, from 2 to 3 times, while the weight and length of the fish grow by 30%,” he said.
The research is supported by Universitas Gadjah Mada, Program Unggulan Perguruan Tinggi (PUPT) – Kemenristek Dikti, MP3EI, as well as M Foundation, owned by Gen. Moeldoko, under the guidance of Dr. Deendarlianto.
The technology was developed by Utari and friends that was appreciated by USAID. Ad-Interim Charge d’Affaires of US Embassy, Brian McFeeters, said the young innovators from UGM had found a sophisticated water processing technology that will help farmers of tilapia fish to get better yields.