BANDUNG, itb.ac.id - Academic Assistant of Institut Teknologi Bandung, Prananda L. Malasan, Ph.D., won 1st place in the IDEAthon 2020 race through his ideas related to COVID-19 organized by the Ministry of Research and Technology / Research Agency and National Innovation (Kemenristek / BRIN) announced on May 8, 2020. This competition carries the theme "Mutual Assistance Protects the Nation from COVID-19".

IDEAthon is a competition organized by Kemenristek / BRIN with the aim of gathering ideas from science and technology activists, students, industry experts, and the general public to innovate through ideas, solutions, products, systems, platforms, or mobile/web applications that can be implemented but not limited on cellphones, the web, IoT (Internet of Things), Big Data, AI (Artificial Intelligence), and other electronic/technological devices in overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic. These ideas/thoughts are not limited to the area of virus prevention, virus control, service management and patient care, community mitigation, business sustainability, or distance learning methods.

In this competition, Prananda created the idea of "Designing Instructions for Making Simple Personal Protective Equipment (APDS) and Campaign #BikinSendiri (#CreateYourOwn)  through Website, Application, and Social Media Platforms. In the process of making this idea, he was assisted by other ITB lecturers consisting of Meirina Triharini, Ph.D., Dr. Arianti A. Puspita, Raditya Ardianto, M.Ds. All of the lecturers came from the Design Ethnography Lab of the Human Expertise and Industrial Product Design, Faculty of Fine Arts and Design, ITB. 

"At first, why did I want to take part in this competition because the program was already funded by the LPPM ITB (Institute of Research and Community Service) in March. So, the program is we want to invite people to make their own cloth masks because the issue of medical masks was hard to find before," said Prananda when interviewed by an ITB Reporter.

Prananda explained that the idea as well as the #bikinsendiri form of this campaign aimed at inviting people to make their own protection be it masks, handwashing tools, and others by using materials from home so that they did not need to buy from outside. "The process of making this idea consists of three stages, the first stage is we collect creative ideas that come from the community such as making a washing place from a bucket, making cloth masks, and so on. Then the second stage is making instructions or steps that need to be done to make the personal protective equipment. Until finally the output is that we have a data bank to make this self-protection tool so that the community can imitate its steps," said Prananda.

The data bank was then poured on Instagram social media (@itbdesignethno) and also the website: https://designethno.id/ which will be launched at the end of May and can be accessed by all Indonesian people for free.

Prananda explained that the website to be launched later was formed as a place for data banks that provided instructions for making personal protective equipment not only for the COVID-19 disaster but also for floods, earthquakes, and others. "So when there is a disaster, people are confused about what to do, they can see instructions on our website that can be accessed anywhere and anytime," he said.

The idea from Prananda and his team consisted of 20 product designs of experimental results and product curation of community initiatives and had been translated into various regional languages throughout the archipelago. "The regional languages used for the campaign so far have been seven languages namely Palembang, Bugis, Ambon, Banda, Javanese, Sundanese, and Aceh. We deliberately provide various languages so that all levels of society can take these steps and have a sense of belonging to this campaign, "said Prananda.

He felt very happy with the achievement of becoming the first champion. "Surely we are very happy when we get this champion because we can represent ITB and also apparently can contribute in terms of design in conditions like this. Hopefully, in the future, we want to be able to be useful to all levels of society because we are not making this idea because of race, class, and so on. So our focus is from the community, for the community, and of course for Indonesia, "Prananda said at the end of the interview.

Reporter: Elisabeth Sirumapea

Translator: Elisabeth Sirumapea