CommTECH Exploration 2020

Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember through its Directorate of Global Engagement proudly presents GPbL (Global Project-based Learning) camp program named Community and Technological (CommTECH) Exploration. CommTECH Exploration is a camp program created to raise the awareness of the youth about natural issues and disaster that occur in the community nowadays. By merging ideas from diverse perspectives around the world, CommTECH Exploration will create global knowledge for overcoming the local problem. This idea came in order to achieve a better future, specifically in disaster management.

CommTECH Exploration is also the first short program whose concerns in the disaster management obtained by ITS Surabaya. For the first edition of the CommTECH Exploration, ITS Surabaya collaborated with Soka University, Japan and Kumamoto University, Japan. There were 32 participants participated in this program. 16 participants are from ITS Surabaya, 10 participants from Soka University, Japan, and 6 participants from Kumamoto University, Japan. They were divided into 8 teams and work together in 13 days (20 Feb – 3 Mar 2020) to make solutions for managing disaster prevention in Surabaya.

CommTECH Exploration was officially opened in Surabaya, 20 February 2020 at ITS Rectorate Building. Special performance by the traditional dancer opened the ceremonial ceremony and followed by speeches from the representatives from the host university and the partner universities. After the opening ceremony, the participants were also explained about the brief explanation of the program, learned Indonesian Language, and played the traditional games.

In the following days, the participants were getting new insights from the professors regarding disaster topics. In total, There were 10 sessions with the professors. The session discussed the disaster in the nutshell, Natural Disasters and Specific Disasters often happened in Indonesia, Disasters occurred by Human Behaviour, and also Tackling Global Sustainably Challenges. By the end of the program, each team needed to present their solution for Surabaya regarding disaster management.

Every day, all the participants didn’t only have a course in the class but also learned a new thing especially about Indonesian cultures. There were several interesting activities followed by all participants such as Traditional Games, Making Batik (Traditional Clothing of Indonesia), Indonesia Martial Art, and Traditional Dance of Indonesia.

The interesting thing about this program was the participants could observe directly to the place that already learned in the class session. Several visitations obtained in this 2-week program. The visitation was divided into two types, site visit and governmental office visitation.

The site visit firstly conducted in a different city, precisely in Trowulan Mojokerto, approximately 80 km from Surabaya. In Trowulan, all participants could observe the heritage of the ancient Majapahit Kingdom, known as one of the biggest kingdoms in Indonesia. Long ago, civilization was already built in Trowulan and has been through a lot of the disaster such us volcano, flood, etc. The participant could observe directly the impact of the disaster on the heritage of the kingdom. They also visited some tourism place around the heritage.

Participants also visited the mangrove forest and found many species there. They learned how the plan could prevent many disasters and help to grow the ecosystem there. The mangrove is located in the shore of Surabaya city. To get there, all the participants had to get the boat for 15 minutes. Passing the river and the dense mangrove forest was a wonderful event to be experienced.

Then the participants had a visit to the Governmental Office to see how the city manage all the things that have a tendency to disaster. the visit aimed to give the participants insights in creating their solutions. Participants had a chance to visit the Governmental Office of Disaster Management, Fire Brigade, Governmental Office of Communication and Information.

Not only the session that all the participants could get but also they could enjoy the famous tourism spot, Bromo Mountain. Bromo Mountain is a mountains tourism spot, it is the best place to enjoy a sun-rise, riding a rose, driving a 4WD car, and most importantly enjoying amazing scenes.

At the end of the program finally, the participants had to present their ideas and solution for Surabaya in order to manage disaster prevention. at first, all the solutions should be showed in a poster and presented to the student in ITS Surabaya in the exhibition. After the exhibition, the participants had a presentation session in front of the professors. There were 8 teams and 8 solutions presented in this session, the solutions were divided into some topics:

• Preventing Fallen Tree
• Assessment of Flood Hazard
• Earthquake Mitigation
• Urban Fire Hazard
• Sea-Level Rise

It was a wonderful experience for ITS to conduct this program and an unforgettable event to have for each party in this program. See you at the next event!