Two ITB alumnus, Pandu Sastrowardoyo and Dr. Agus Dana Permana shared their experiences in working at the health and food sector in the discussion forum "Sharing Session Startup from Sciences to Industry" by SITH ITB.

Pandu Sastrowardoyo is the CEO of DeBio Network and one of the Supervisory Board at the Blockchain Association Indonesia. Pandu is a graduate of Environmental Engineering major FTSL ITB, however, his background does not prevent him to work outside the Environmental Engineering scope. Currently, Pandu chose to focus on the Blockchain field.

Lately, Blockchain has been the prima donna for the startup founder especially abroad. The Blockchain Association Indonesia brings together many blockchain-based startups. One of them is DeBio Network.

DeBio Network is an acronym of Decentralized Bio Network, a startup that focuses on medical and bioinformatics fields. Pandu explained that DeBio Network is working on a prototype that will provide services related to a genetic test. These tests have been popular abroad and are used to identify ancestry, inherited disease, and disease that are caused by mutation or specific DNA defects. "The test users will pay using cryptocurrency to be provided by the test kit and services. The test result will be delivered through application and DeBio Network site," he said on Saturday (21/08/2021).

Data breaches from applications and websites are very common in Indonesia. DeBio Network possess very personal data from its customer which necessitates the need for advanced server protection. This is where the blockchain plays a role in protecting the stored data.

Dr. Agus Dana Permana is an ITB alumnus that is now working as a lecturer at the Agrotechnology and Bioproduct Technology Research Group SITH ITB. He has many experiences from working in multiple companies, especially in the pest control field. These experiences motivate him to establish Agraponik.

Currently, Dr. Agus is running his business with the help of his students that have graduated from Agricultural Engineering major. In addition to Agraponik, Dr. Agus also develop fertilizer for the farmer and partnered with multiple agriculture-focused startups.

There are many different perspectives in developing a startup during this 4.0 industrial revolution era. The first is to use big data as a basis. The second is to utilize Indonesia's topography that is very suited for agriculture. A piece of advice that was conveyed by Pandu Sastrowardoyo is that students need to sharpen their mindset during their study at ITB because it will be very useful to work in various sectors and fields.

Reporter: Alvina Putri Nabilah (Biology, 2019)
Translator: Favian Aldilla R (Civil Engineering, 2019)