Written by Student Reporter, Deo Fernando (Entrepreneurship 2021)
Digital era is already coming and impacting all aspects of our live. To face this era, we need to improve our competence related to digitalization. Moreover, in the advent of data collecting and processing technology has pushed business and social science into a new frontier that is data analytics and simulation.
In collaboration with Shibaura Institut of Technology (SIT), SBM ITB organized the Problem-Based Learning (PBL) under the theme of small –medium enterprise (SME) Innovation in Big data era from 12-20 February 2020 at SBM ITB Bandung Campus. Dr. Eng. Manahan Siallagan from Big data and Business Analytic Laboratory SBM ITB who opened the event said, “With the help of my colleagues in Big data and Business analytics Laboratory SBM ITB, we are ready to lead to a new journey on how big data can help people and their business.”
The participants are 12 student from SBM ITB and 12 Student from SIT. All students were divided into six group that consist of two student from SBM and two students from SIT. The group assigned to observe an SME in Bandung and expected to give them possible solutions to their problems. The SMEs that joined this program were Karoeng.id, Koku Footwear, Sankimo, Rosmala Syari, Maraya Scraf, and Alma Salon. All of the SMEs are located in Bandung and have different business field like fashion, craft, shoes, and beauty.
On the first day, each team should choose one of the SMEs that they were interested to solve its’ problem. After that, team visited the SMEs’ store and brainstorming with the SME’S owner about the problem that they face. The next day student must analyse the problems, present it in front of the lecturer, and receive feedback to improve the problem solution.
The student also received lecturing from Dr. Manahan about “R” studio whose a tools to analyse data so it will give the students many information about the data inputs. Meanwhile, the students also joined a workshop held at Auditorium SBM ITB with theme “Indonesia Big Data for MSME 2020”. (Article about the workshop, click here)
For almost a week of the program, lecturer from SBM ITB and SIT give feedback to the students to improve their proposal. The students also had opportunities to get mentoring sessions with the lecturer. At the weekend, the SIT students had the opportunity to travel around Bandung and learned something that relevant with the case that given.
This program has specific purpose in establishing cooperation with several institution/colleges abroad and SMEs owners in Bandung. The benefit of this program for the participants is they could experience real cases from the SMEs in Indonesia, especially Bandung. Students got hand-on experience to solve problems using data analytics or simulation. This activity helped to develop students to understand how data is collected, processed, and analyzed.
Meanwhile, the SMEs’ owner also received benefits from this program. “ I got a lot of insight from the presentation and I think so many good ideas can be implemented in my business.” said the founder of Maraya Scraf on the final presentation day, that was also be a farewell event with SIT students.