The Indonesian people are currently being challenged on the issue of diversity that is believed to be able strengthen solidarity. To maintain unity of the nation, citizens ought to always strengthen social cohesion, solidarity, and respect diversity in the country. This was said by chairman of alumni association of Universitas Gadjah Mada (Kagama), Ganjar Pranowo, whilst opening a national meeting of the association at Senate Hall UGM on Saturday (17/12).
Ganjar Pranowo who is the current Central Java Governor has the opinion that state administrators need to pay attention to the importance of developing nation’s culture and character. “Nation and character development becomes the essential requirement for making progress,” he said.
The Governor said UGM as the oldest university in the country has given an example to the state that differences and plurality are not a barrier to progress. On diversity, UGM has and will always be at the forefront to accepting Pancasila as the state guidelines. Through its Centre for Pancasila Studies, UGM tries to make sure that Pancasila really works. “Pancasila shouldn’t stay just as a slogan, but has to be an ideology that works well in political, economic, social, and cultural affairs,” he said.
Rector of UGM, Prof. Ir. Dwikorita Karnawati, M.Sc., Ph.D., said that UGM and Kagama had to always form synergies to drive the state forward, call for unity of the state, and contribute to the economy through the creation of smart and resilient villages.
UGM is committed to build Indonesia from the rural areas. One of the efforts is to reducing the poverty rate at the rural areas which is almost twice that in the urban areas by giving wide acess to education and economy. “We want to open wide access to education and technology, particularly to the rural people,” she said.
UGM has launched a programme for the smart village creation through mobile phone applications. One of these apps, according to the Rector, can detect the health of the users, even offer doctor’s consultation to patients.
“UGM will prepare as many a 1,000 mobile phones containing these applications. People can then have their health checked via online services. We would like to encourage the people to prevent diseases,” she said.
The national meeting was attended by 17 executives from local branches of Aceh, Lampung, Maluku, Bali, Banten, Riau, South Sulawesi, North Sumatera, West Java, Central Java, East Java, East Kalimantan, South Sumatera, Jakarta, West Sumatera, as well as Yogyakarta.