ISAME is a semi-annual meeting of the Asia Innovation Center (AIC) consortium. The members of AIC came from management faculties all over Asia, including the Management of Technology Laboratorium, SBM ITB—which also represents Indonesia at AIC.

Besides Indonesia, other countries are also participating in AIC. Malaysia was represented by Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), Malaysia Japan Institute of Technology, and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). Meanwhile, Thailand was represented by Chiang Mai University (CMU), Vietnam was represented by Da Nang University, Sri Lanka was represented by the University of Kelaniya, and Japan was represented by Yamaguchi University (YU).

ISAME 2021 was held for 2 days filled with a series of extraordinary events and speakers. On the first day, a public-open symposium was held starting at 13.00 JST (Japan Standard Time), opened by remarks from the Director of AIC, the Dean of YUMOT, and each representative from AIC member universities.

Vice Dean of Academic SBM ITB Prof. Aurik Gustomo delivered his remarks by reporting the current state of education at ITB. The event then continued with two keynote speeches and a discussion by each presenter.

The first keynote speech came from Executive Vice President FFG Venture Business Partners, Ltd Yushida Yamaguchi, discussing the topic "Commercialization Management System for Creating University Ventures". Yamaguchi explained the commercialization management system in establishing a university company by taking a real example from the START Program carried out by his own company.

FFG Venture Business Partners is a Fukuoka Financial Group venture capital firm that acts as a business promoter in the START Program. This program aims to commercialize high-potential and high-risk technology ideas to be developed by university researchers with the support of business promoters at the pre-enterprise stage.

"In this case, the business promoter connects the university/research institute with a business support network consisting of a technology/market research group, a business development group, and an outside licensing group," said Yasuhisa.

The second keynote speech was delivered by Higher Education Industry Director for the Asia Pacific Japan of Microsoft Alexandros Papaspyridis, Ph.D. from Canada. He talked about “Reimagining Computational Education in Business Schools for Industry 4.0”. Papaspyridis explained the changes in education during the Covid-19 pandemic which underwent a digital transformation in work and life in 2 months.

Papaspyridis said that universities should use data analysis to make decisions, deliver curriculum digitally (hybrid or fully online), use digital courseware and virtual/augmented experiences, have distance learning capability, improve skills, and create new collaboration models with industry and government. Paradigms in terms of finance, technology, and psychology will shift over a long time.

According to him, the Microsoft Learn product with Azure for Students can help universities to develop students who have the technical skills needed in future jobs, including data analysis, machine learning, statistics, and probabilistic modeling. The most challenging part for Papaspyridis was to make universities aware of the changes that they need and help them execute the right action.

The second day of ISAME 2021 begins with an update from each AIC member regarding the use of digital tools in learning programs and lectures related to data science in the Covid-19 era. Followed by the introduction of a virtual conference platform developed by ITB, presented by Dr. Eko Agus Prasetio from MoT Lab SBM-ITB. The event ended with a discussion at the next meeting and a closing statement from Prof. Matsura from Yamaguchi University.

Reporter: Pravito Septadenova Dwi Ananta (Teknik Geologi, 2019)
Translator: Aghisna Syifa R (Biologi, 2020)