During the annual report at the anniversary of Gadjah Mada University’s Faculty of Agricultural Technology, the Dean explained that the future of agricultural technology depends on digital transformation.
According to a recent press release, agricultural technology in the world today has developed rapidly.
At the same time, the world’s population continues to grow equally fast, which thereby demands the availability of large resources.
It is estimated that in order to meet these needs, industrial output must increase by 60% in 2030.
Digital Transformation
To achieve this, human resources (HR) in the field of agro-industry inevitably need to embrace digital transformation.
The transformation for this field would include the Internet of Things (IoT) as well as sensors on the farming land.
They would also use various agricultural equipment and machinery for farming such as drones, robotics, sensors, machine learning and analytics for tracking and crop monitoring.
Improving the competency of human resources in this field can be achieved by having an integrated program.
The University’s Faculty of Agricultural Technology, in its vision to become a centre of excellence in the field of agro-industry, had improved its teaching and education process.
The Faculty enhanced its IT infrastructure and boosted partnerships with various industry stakeholders, government and educational institutions both local and international.
Moreover, there are steps taken toward digitisation and development of lecture content and research on Industry 4.0, IoT, artificial intelligence (AI), human-machine interface, robotics and sensor technology, and 3D printing technology.
The Faculty has played a significant role in the development of food and agriculture in Indonesia.
However, Indonesia’s strategic geographical position, abundant biodiversity wealth, cultural diversity, ethnicity, and high culinary diversity may cause some difficulty in realising food sovereignty for the welfare of the nation.
Because of this, there are still struggles in increasing the role of various innovations in agritech.
Hopefully, other faculties in the country would follow suit in order to contribute more to the nation and improve the state.
Electric vehicles
In other news, Indonesia’s Minister of Transportation, Budi Karya Sumadi, recently visited and tested the feasibility of the University’s electric vehicles, which range from motorcycles and cars to electric-powered rickshaws.
The Minister expressed his appreciation for the extraordinary work between the students and lecturers on the project.
The learnings from this work definitely have economic value for researchers, universities and the state.
In the trial of one electric car, the Minister discovered how they are using recyclable batteries. This discovery is wonderful as batteries are usually the main problem encountered by electric cars.
He added that the idea to look at research gaps in the battery problem is one of the smartest studies undertaken.
The usefulness of battery recycling is not only for being the power source of an electric car. But, it also solves the problem of battery waste, which has been an issue.
The Dean of the University’s Faculty of Engineering is hopeful that in the future, Indonesia will be able to provide locally-made components, which the University can eventually use for their electric cars.