UNAIR NEWS – Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR) continues to produce entrepreneurs who are not only focused on making profits, but also providing benefit and blessings for the surrounding community. For this reason, UNAIR does not stop to collaborate with alumni who have succeeded in doing business to return to campus and contribute.
One of the UNAIR alumni collaborated with UNAIR is Wayan Supadno (Wayan). He has successfully engaged in Agro-Industrial business. At the meeting held on Monday, February 1, 2021, Wayan explained that in 1991-1993, Wayan had attended compulsory military education in Magelang, and worked at a pharmaceutical company so he was trained in the business world and lived a disciplined life.
“In 1995 I made a loan to Primkopad Rp 700,000, where I used Rp 100,000 of that loan for starting business,” he explained.
There are various types of businesses that Wayan has tried such as used sack business, palm kernel shell business, areca nut business, goldfish, tea wood, rice husks, and oil palm plantations. One of the successful businesses is the palm kernel shell business for coal, which is the result of research and innovation Wayan carried out with his business partners.
However, Wayan has also experienced failures, such as when building hospitals and housing, which made him bankrupt up to 38 billion rupiah. While doing research on palm kernel shells for liquid smoke, bricket, and activated carbon with his research colleagues, Wayan also suffered a loss up to 465 million rupiah because his innovative product was rejected by the European market.
Not giving up, in 2009, Wayan finally succeeded in developing a bio-organic fertilizer formulator and became a practitioner of agriculture and animal husbandry. The science and innovation are then applied to cultivate oil palm plantations so the plantations do not damage the soil and still get maximum benefits.
“Oil palm plantations produce weeds or grass. If the grass is controlled with herbicides, it will become a source of waste and destroy the soil, “he said.
Therefore, Wayan started to establish cattle to eat grass in the oil palm plantation. That way, in addition to reducing the cost of herbicides, Wayan also reduces the cost of feed for cattle. From cattle farming, animal manure is also produced so it becomes another source of income. This system is also known as oil palm-cattle integration.
“The integrated system of cow palm oil changes the cost burden to increase profits, boosts the profits of farmers and / or breeders, and the business can be sustainable because it becomes an ecosystem and economy,” he explained.
According to Wayan, the main capital that must be possessed to do business or become an entrepreneur is trust. Even though someone is smart, rich, and has many relationships, if they are not trusted by other parties it is impossible for them to become an entrepreneur.
Welcoming UNAIR’s invitation to collaborate, Wayan also explained that he had also previously accepted UNAIR students to do internships at his place of business, in Pangkalanbun, Central Kalimantan. The internship carried out by UNAIR students was also emphasized to make students capable of becoming entrepreneurs, not workers.
Author: Galuh Mega Kurnia
Editor: Nuri Hermawan
