UNAIR NEWS – Five students of International Relations (IR) Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR) made the proudest achievement by winning a gold medal in the World Youth Invention and Innovation Award (WYIIA 2021). Developing an app called Sejarah Bangsaku (My Nation’s History), the students managed to win over 450 other teams from 35 countries.
The educational app was initiated by Nabilah Az-zahro, Rifqi Dirga Syahputra, Jihan Amirotul Farikhah, Adisty Salsabila Candra, and Afifah Jilan Hasnida. Besides winning the gold medal in the education category, the five IR students from Class of 2020 also won the Macedonian Special Award from the Daily Center Association’ Doza Srekja’ – Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia.
Entitled “Innovative ‘Sejarah Bangsaku’ Application in Developing Youth Interest and Implementing a History Education Based on Friendly Online Learning in the Covid-19 Pandemic,” the five students did not expect this innovation to win one of the highest awards. Moreover, among the hundreds of innovations that competed in WYIIA, they became the only team discussing history innovations.
The ‘Sejarah Bangsaku’ app contains various interesting learning modes. First, it has Learning Mode containing historical animated videos that encourage user understanding of the application in an exciting and entertaining method. Second, the Explore Mode includes quizzes, tryouts, and games that promote learning through point and level systems.
The third is the Creative Mode which allows users to share their works and creative ideas through photos, videos, posters, and writings about history. The last is the Literacy Mode, which contains books, journals, and other historical literature that can be an additional reference in understanding history.
“Various modes are provided so that users can learn through fun ways and actively contribute to creating historical content, especially in Creative Mode,” explained Dirga, one of the team members.
Representing his team, Dirga revealed that the idea for the application was from the lack of interest of the younger generation in history. Moreover, history lessons in the Indonesian curriculum are filled with materials and books that tend to be boring.
“From that condition, we are trying to formulate an application that can improve the historical literacy of young people with an attractive online learning method. We also target users from elementary to high school levels,” he added.
With such a brilliant app idea, they managed to execute it in just one week. The five students tried to use the time effectively with online coordination to finish the paper, power points, and posters under the guidance of IR lecturer, M. Muttaqien, S.IP., M.A., Ph.D.
With this achievement, Dirga believed that the uniqueness of their app gives the advantage leading to a gold medal. It is an aspect that students must pay attention to if they want to participate in a similar competition.
“Emphasize the uniqueness so innovations we make can be a new breakthrough. The important thing is to think uniquely and do your best to be the best as well,” he said.
WYIIA 2021 is an international innovation competition organized by the Indonesian Young Scientist Association in collaboration with Yogyakarta State University. This competition also collaborates with several other international institutions from Malaysia, Turkey, Romania, Tunisia, Macedonia, and Morocco. (*)
Author: Intang Arifia
Editor: Binti Q. Masruroh
