Prof. Ir. Mochamad Ashari, M.Eng., Ph.D., the rector of Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) has been selected to become one of the beneficiaries of the 2020 Alumni Achievement Award by Curtin University, Australia, on 29th October 2020.
The award is an annual tribute from the university to appreciate the positive impacts made by its alumni from all over the world. Along with Prof. Ashari who was honored with the Innovation award, there are five other alumni that were given the award in the category of Business and Law, Humanity, Health Science, Science Engineering, and Global Impact.
As the pandemic triggers devastating impacts in every layer of the community, Prof. Ashari along with the ITS community gear their efforts to cope and combat the global pandemic. Under his leadership, the institution produced 170,000 face shields, 4,500 litters of hand sanitizer, and 1,500 hazmats (hazardous materials) suits. ITS also made a breakthrough by producing 12 units of RAISA, a robot medical assistant for Covid-19 invented through collaboration with Airlangga University. These certainly were the major contributions for the nation as Indonesia was not fully prepared and equipped to handle the outbreak crisis initially—like most countries.
Following the widespread of the pandemic in the early of the year, the institution forged some teams of experts from the ITS community that were classified based on their expertise. For instance, the lectures and faculties in the Department of Industrial Design worked with the design and optimization of the face shield.
One of the other teams came from the Department of Environmental Engineering which focused on producing affordable hand sanitizers. Meanwhile, the ITS robotics team innovated with the multi-role, medical assistant robot (RAISA) to limit physical contact from health workers to the patients or suspects. The students and alumni of ITS also collectively raised funding for the hazmat suits for doctors, nurses, and other heroes on the frontlines.
Being the figurehead of the institution, Prof. Ashari had a critical role in organizing, developing, and making sure each of the teams could deliver their best in the pursuit of fighting the Covid-19.
“It is more than an honor to be able to serve and make real and beneficial impacts to the society”, expressed the rector.
He dedicated his Innovation Award of the Curtin University Alumni Achievement to the teams and the ITS community for the tireless support in the contribution. He is hopeful that ITS can bring many more positive imprints in the future.