The global pandemic of COVID-19 has impacted our lives significantly. As we weather the global health crisis together, many of us are adapting ourselves, coping with strategies and developing new ways to combat this pandemic. Engineers, researchers, innovators and businesses from various sectors are also working on leveraging technology to alleviate the effects of these unprecedented challenges.
The advancement of technology and digital communication play a vital role in the current situation where most people have to work from home and students are required to continue their studies through online platforms. With this new model of digitalization in many sectors, the IEEE Indonesia Section took this opportunity to organize a webinar series on the IEEE Leadership Summit: Engineering in COVID-19, collaboratively with IEEE Region 10 and the IEEE Singapore office (a.k.a IEEE Asia-Pacific office). The first webinar was conducted on 2 May 2020 to mark Indonesia National Education Day, with the theme “When the most important technology is teamwork.”
IEEE Indonesia Section Chair, Prof. Wisnu Jatmiko, and IEEE Region 10 Director, Prof. Akinori Nishihara, delivered welcome remarks and applauded the success of this webinar with 237 attendees. To grace the event, Prof. Bambang Brodjonegoro, the Indonesia Minister of Research and Technology, National Research and Innovation Agency, gave a keynote speech and shared his perspectives on the importance of creating new opportunities, new jobs and new initiatives collaboratively while we fight against this global health crisis. This pandemic is a wake-up call to all sectors; only through collaborative efforts. governments, industry, academia, researchers, scientists, and engineers can fight through this together.
IEEE Indonesia Section Industry Relations Chair, Agnes Irwanti, presented an overview of activity report of this webinar series. Prominent speakers included IEEE Region 10 Director-Elect, Mr. Deepak Mathur; IEEE R10 Industry Relations Committee Chair, Dr. Chris Lee; Arief H. Gunawan from Telkom Indonesia; Dr. Patrick Liew, the Chairman of GEX Ventures Pte. Ltd.; Dr. Denny Setiawan from the Indonesia Ministry of Information and Communication. The apeakers presented their insightful perspectives on how the technologies, digitalization, engineering and innovation play a part collaboratively to face these global challenges.
After the presentations, Mr. Kuncoro Wastuwibowo from Telkom Indonesia and Dr. Ford Lumban Gaol, the Chapter Chair of IEEE Indonesia Computer Society, chaired the open discussion session.
The webinar was successfully concluded with a closing remark by Mr. Satriyo Dharmanto from PT. Multikom Global – Indonesia and by Mr. Kuncoro Wastuwibowo. Through teamwork, we all shall overcome our common enemy together.