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| LeX UMM Participants and Singapore Politechnic. (Photo: Aan / PR) |
The University of Muhammadiyah Malang (UMM) and Singapore Polytechnic (SP) again collaborated to hold a social innovation project, Learning Express (LeX). "LeX is part of our collaboration to establish good relations with neighbouring countries. At least this time consists of 8 countries in 22 locations and 29 partners. One of them is UMM, "said Lim Jun Cheng, coordinator of SP.
There are at least 56 students consisting of 28 UMM students and 28 SP students. They are divided into 4 groups. "Each was filled by 7 people from UMM and 7 from SP and accompanied by 2 expert facilitators and 1 coordinator from SP. Also, 6 facilitators added 2 coordinators from UMM, "said Ambika Putri Perdani as Program Officer of the International Relation Office (IRO) of UMM, Tuesday (12/3).
LeXwas going on 12 days. For the first three days settled in the house of a resident who owned a business. "The goal is to see the situation, process, and atmosphere in which they are placed. Primarily it helps overcome the ineffectiveness of the work of SMEs in the village. After three days, the students will return to the university to make a prototype at the Machine Lab and Industrial Lab, "said Ambika.
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This social innovation program was briefly similar to the Community Service Program (KKN). The difference, the participants are not just doing service in general. Instead, it used standard references to solve the problems in which they are placed. "We have a module as a reference called Thinking Design and adapted from the Stanford and MiT booklets," said Ambika.
There were 5 steps that became references that were included in the module namely sense and sensitivity, empathy study, define, ideation, prototyping and co-creation. "They use this module to identify the user (client, red.) If there is a problem like in the field of marketing, the field of equipment or in the field of processing. From there, there will be output at the closing ceremony, "Ambika said.
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There were 3 Small and Medium Enterprises which were activities for LeX programs. It was UKM Salted Egg Basori in Batu Subdistrict, production of Honey in Roni's Junrejo Subdistrict, as well as Pandu's UKM Los Karangploso Coffee centre. The results of the innovation can be developed into several things, such as making a machine or product marketing model with new packaging.
On the 20th March, precisely at the closing ceremony, the participants will showcase their prototype products to be shown to the village head businessmen at the UMM BAU Auditorium. "Hopefully through the design thinking model, every action taken is centred on what is desired and needed by the user, all solutions can be found a solution," concluded Ambika.(Win)
