Two ITB Students Participated in Jurgen Dormann Education Event in Switzerland

September 05, 2016

By Gracia Isaura Raulina

Editor Gracia Isaura Raulina

BANDUNG, itb.ac.id - One of every student's dreams is to be able to receive scholarship or chance to study abroad. In addition to getting help in the form of funds, scholarship institutions often also give soft skill trainings essential for college students. Two ITB students, Faiz Anhar Widodo (Electrical Engineering 2013) and Dhimas Bintang Kusumawardhana (Electrical Engineering 2013) managed to get both through ABB Jürgen Dormann Foundation. On Tuesday until Monday (16-22/08/16), they were chosen to be the representatives of Indonesia to participate in Jürgen Dormann Education Event 2016 held in Switzerland. Moreover, Faiz also managed to receive the Best Group Presentation award when he had the opportunity to deliver a presentation on the event.

Draw Inspiration Up to Switzerland

The event, which involved representatives from 11 countries around the world, invited participants to introduce the culture of each of their countries, meet with the CEO of ABB Jürgen Dormann Foundation, visit production plants and laboratories of ABB Jürgen Dormann Foundation, and also visit Eidgenessische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zurich as one of the leading technology institutes in Switzerland. In addition, the participants of Jurgen Dormann Education Event 2016 also had to prepare a presentation in their group, whose members composed of representatives from different countries.

Faiz and his group gave a presentation about electric cars and charging infrastructure, while Bintang gave a presentation about microgrid. There were a lot of lessons that they gained from the 7-day event in Switzerland. Faiz and Bintang claimed that they were excited to be the scholarship recipients of ABB Jürgen Dormann Foundation and gained the opportunity to be invited to Switzerland.

Covert Struggle to Switzerland

The opportunity to go to Switzerland opened when they managed to get scholarship from ABB Jürgen Dormann Foundation in 2014. Previously, both Faiz and Bintang tried many times to get scholarships from many institutions. Faiz and Bintang have tried applying to about 4 scholarship institutions, but they were rejected by all. In fact, Bintang himself has once been rejected by ABB Jürgen Dormann Foundation when he previously tried to apply for the scholarship. At that time, he even voluntarily came back to Bandung immediately to participate in the selection process of the scholarship although he had only gone back to his hometown in Central Java 2 days earlier.

In the end, Bintang got a second chance to progress to the selection phase and finally managed to be one of the scholarship recipients along with Faiz. "We should not be desperate in order to achieve something. Someone once told me, dream as high as the stars. Because even if we fall, we will still be among the stars," Bintang said as he closed the interview.