There were 3 main topics being contested, which were clean technology innovation, sustainable funding innovation, and community development innovation based on new renewable energy (EBT). The final competition was held online on Saturday (28/10/2023), and the awarding was held on Monday (30/10/2023) at Gadjah Mada University.

In this competition, Ali and Akmal presented the idea of ??Eco-Boltz. Eco-Boltz is an innovative online electric motorbike taxi application with a term work commitment contract installment scheme to increase the adoption of electric vehicles in Indonesia.

Ali explained how they came up with the idea. According to him, they observed a problem that exists in Indonesia, which is the lack of adoption of electric vehicles despite existing subsidies from the government.

To switch to electric vehicles, there are indeed many challenges faced by society. Starting from charging the battery, the distance, to the purchase price which is still considered expensive compared to buying a regular vehicle. It does not come as a surprise that there are still few people who want to buy it.

They defined a solution to answer this problem, and so the idea of ??Eco-Boltz was born. The two of them finally succeeded in making a prototype.
Eco-Boltz can be considered a general online motorcycle taxi application, but based on electric vehicles. Online motorcycle taxi drivers will use electric motorbikes with the aim of increasing the adoption of electric vehicles indirectly from passing motorists on the road and by word of mouth. According to them, online motorcycle taxi drivers were chosen as the right market because they need vehicles as a source of income.

Apart from that, with there being online motorbike taxis passing by on the road, it will also indirectly campaign that electric motorbikes really exist and have many advantages.

The services provided will be daily motorbike rentals and installments to get the motorbike within a certain period. They mainly want to adopt motorbikes with these 2 schemes. They said that if this idea were to be developed further, many things would of course need to be considered.

The current trend of renewable energy makes them feel challenged since there will be a time when people will switch to renewable energy. Therefore, taking part in this competition is the first step for them to become pioneers of renewable energy as well as to raise awareness within themselves.

“Like it or not, we will have to completely switch to renewable energy one day. "So, this is our first step to becoming renewable energy pioneers when that happens, and also to raising awareness within each of us," Ali said.

Even though their team only consisted of 2 members, they were able to win 3rd place in the competition against 120 other group participants from various universities in Indonesia.

In his interview, Ali advised that while studying at ITB, students should not hesitate to take part in competitions and not only limit themselves to academic life.

Ali also revealed that taking part in competitions can be useful for practicing fast, creative, and solution thinking. If the competition is with a team, he can also learn to collaborate. Experiences like this might not be learned from regular lectures.

Moreover, they also learned how to manage time well amidst their busy lives and do the best they can.

"When we compete, there are goals we want to pursue, and the effort we give is more than what we usually give. This might be as well to learn as time and workload management. We can no longer say 'I'm busy, I have too much work on my hands' because everyone is also busy and has too much work on their hands. So don't make those excuses cause us to be unable to take part in the competition," Ali concluded.

Reporter: Gishelawati (Astronomy, 2019)
Translator: Hanna Daniela Ayu (Aerospace Engineering, 2021)
Editor: Firza