Asian Students' Venture Forum is an annual competition which is held by Korea Economic Daily. This business startup competition was held in multiple countries in Asia, such as Korea, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines. Team I-Newbee presented a sophisticated concept with an interesting business model while also prioritizing its economic feasibility.

When interviewed on Saturday (2/4/2022), Afra explained the different stages of the competition. The first stage is a proposal and video selection on a national scale. After the screening stage, only 2 teams will be selected from each country. Another Indonesian delegation that passed the national selection is a team from the University of Indonesia. "This year there are 9 startups from 5 countries that made it into the final stage. Thank God that for this year, we became the only Indonesian delegation to win a medal," said Afra.

The innovation that they presented for this competition is an artificial beehive designed specifically for the Trigona bee. The group said that this beehive can speed up the honey harvesting process. The group named this technology-based beehive as “Slim Hive”. This product is intended for Trigona bee farmers, both beginners and experts, because this product is designed to be easily operated and with minimal risk.

"Slim Hive is equipped with IoT technologies such as motion detector, temperature sensor, and weight sensor as a way to monitor the beehive in real-time through smartphones. The motion detector will provide information of bees' activities inside the hives," said Satria.

The temperature sensor will add to the accuracy of the motion detector and the weight sensor will help the farmer estimate when the beehive is ready to be harvested. Satria added that the production of their product has reached the physical prototype stage. This prototype will be used as the test subject, for experimentation, and further development.

*The Design of Slim Hive Prototype (Source documentation of Team I-Newbee)

Trigona bees, especially the Itama kind, became the farmer's choice because of their higher selling value compared to common honeybees. Moreover, Trigona bees' honey also has higher chemical compounds and mineral content, thus making the honey more expensive.

The team began its preparations in November 2021 for the national stage and in early January for the international stage. "We are faced with the lack of available data and publications for the Trigona bees. Apart from the literature study, we also conducted a field survey to collect data with the help of the West Java Indonesian Honey Bee Association (ILMI)," said Afra.

This victory would not be achieved without the help and guidance from the mentors in SBM ITB and a SITH lecturer, Dr. M. Yusuf Abduh. Alfa hoped that they could further develop this product and compete in both national and international innovational competitions. "Obviously, we also hope that our product will help the bee farmer and solve some of their problems," ended Satria.

Reporter: Maharani Rachmawati Purnomo (Oceanography, 2020)
Translator: Favian Aldilla Rachmadi (Civil Engineering, 2019)