“For me, outstanding students are those who are driven to build change towards the environment surrounding them. This can be shown through competing ideas, the will to learn, consistency in building new initiatives or developing old initiatives for it to keep on being relevant in the present. Outstanding students are those that can inspire other students to move in order to together give contributions to society,” said the Depok born girl.

According to her, achievements have a very broad scope. Not only in the academic field, non academic achievements are also considered to be important for her. Throughout her first year in university, she joined the Unit Perkumpulan Seni Tari dan Karawitan Jawa (PSTK ITB) and Satoe Indonesia community in SBM ITB. In her second year, she became Project Associate in Keluarga Kabinet Mahasiswa (KM) ITB. Only in her third year did she begin focusing on organizations off campus. Nailah joined these many student organizations not without reason. Everything she did in those organizations were things she liked.

“My parents gave me the freedom to choose my own path in life. They never forced me to dabble in a certain field or do other things that they wanted. Due to that, I personally have great control over doing the things that I love. Even so, whenever I feel like I failed or have taken the wrong path, they were always there to support whatever my life choices are,” Nailah explained.

Aspiring to become entrepreneurs at a young age, Nailah and a few of her peers built a start-up named Meraki Asa Community Engagement Platform. This is a platform for the Indonesian Youth as an effort to overcome the educational and job opportunity gap in the province of East Nusa Tenggara (NTT). This program combines community engagement directly to the villages in NTT with further education programs through the platform. It is hoped that from this initiative, the educational and job opportunity gap for Indonesian people in Java and outside Java will decrease, thereby increasing Indonesia's Human Development Index, which is linear with the welfare of its people.

Reporter: Adi Permana
Translator: Hanna Daniela Ayu (Aerospace Engineering, 2021)