Universitas Indonesia (UI) has further strengthened its position as the best university in Indonesia by enhancing and strengthening its international partnerships. On Saturday (23/04), the delegation from the Universitas Indonesia (UI) lead by the Rector of UI Prof. Ari Kuncoro, S.E, M.A., Ph.D., visited the University of California, Berkeley (UC Barkeley) to sign a cooperation agreement between UI and UC Berkeley. This collaboration includes the Visiting Research Young Scholar program from Universitas Indonesia to conduct research for one year in the fields of Energy, Bioengineering and Biomedical Engineering with leading professors from UC Berkeley. This program is fully supported by the Lembaga Penjamin Simpanan (LPS).
During the visit, Prof. Ari was accompanied by the Vice Rector for Human Resources and Assets, Prof. Dr. Ir. Dedi Priadi, DEA; Director of Cooperation UI, Dr. Toto Pranoto; The Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Indonesia (FTUI), Prof. Dr. Heri Hermansyah, S.T., M.Eng; and a team from LPS led by the Chairman of the LPS Board of Commissioners, Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa. In addition to visiting UC Berkeley, the UI and LPS Delegation also carried out a working visit to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and two Start-up Accelerators in Silicon Valley, namely Mind the Bridge (MTB) and Plug and Play as well as a visit to Tesla.
“This collaboration program is part of the “Scholars Engagement Program for Natural Resources-Based Research and Innovation” program which is fully funded by the Deposit Insurance Corporation (LPS). This program aims to increase the research and research capacity of young researchers at UI. As a pilot project, the first collaboration is between the UI Faculty of Engineering (FTUI) and the UC Berkeley School of Engineering,” said Prof. Ari.
In addition to the above programs, IDIC also supports UI with the Research Grant for Selected Topics program. In this program, IDIC provides funding for 1 year to four research proposals in the fields of sustainable energy, biotechnology and/or green economy. “It is hoped that with this collaboration, UI can produce excellent young researchers who have strong international exposure, who are experienced in conducting research in cutting edge laboratories. In addition, this program can also encourage collaborative research and publications with UI with well-known institutions at the international level,” said the Chairman of the LPS Board of Commissioners, Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa.
While visiting UCLA, UI leaders and the LPS team were welcomed by Chancellor of the University of California, Gene David Block (Tuesday, 19/04). The delegation was welcomed by the UCLA Chancellor and the UCLA Asia Pacific team, including leaders in the School of Engineering and Asia Pacific Cooperation. The purpose of this meeting is to initiate educational collaboration, especially in the first phase with FTUI for the student exchange program, as well as to offer the possibility of a Fast Track Bachelor Master Program in 5 years, where students can complete and obtain a bachelor’s degree from UI and continue their master’s education at UCLA. In addition, cooperation in the health sector was also discussed with the possibility of UCLA opening a hospital in Indonesia, where UI could become a partner.
“In addition to visits to two universities, the UI and LPS teams also visited several industries in Silicon Valley, namely IT Accelerator Start-up Mind the Bridge (MTB) and Plug and Play. During this visit, we discussed how large corporations tend to develop open innovation to accelerate product growth and how companies seek and nurture start-up seeds which are then matched with global corporations. These two companies have partnerships with many top universities in the United States as well as global corporations. In the future, UI will cooperate further with these two companies to look for start-up seeds in UI and Indonesia to be developed,” said Prof. Ari.
On a benchmarking visit to the Tesla factory in Silicon Valley, the UI delegation met with 10 Indonesian diaspora who are currently working there. One of them is Edwin Prasetyo who works as a Software Engineer at Tesla. This discussion is related to the exploration of the development of future electric car technology and the acceleration process of electric car technology carried out by Tesla. In addition, this discussion also discussed talent from Indonesia to have a career opportunity at Tesla through various strategies that can be applied.
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Public Communication Bureau
Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Indonesia