A team of Unviersitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY) became the winner of an essay competition in Festival Ilmiah/FALAH (Scientific Festival) conducted at University of Airlangga. Announced on 20 September, the team consisting of Candra Kusuma Wardana (a Management student of batch 2015), Meisya Rani (an Economics student of batch 2016), and Rido Argo Mukti (a Governmental Study student of batch 2014) successfully won over two teams of University of Indonesia as the first and second runner up.

In an interview on Tuesday (26/9), Candra told that the essay theme was ‘Utilization of Islamic Philanthropy Instruments in Embodying SDGs in Indonesia.’ “We had prepared the competition since even semester break we knew FALAH from a Group of Economics Student for Future Indonesia (GESFID). We, then, had a discussion with our seniors and did an observation in Siung beach, Gunung Kidul. Our idea for the essay is novel and unique as it was a collaboration idea as well as unique, and we also used research of our lecturer, Prof. Akhyar Adnan as the reference,” said Candra.

UMY was the only private university passing to top 10 among teams of University of Indonesia (UI), University of Diponegoro (UNDIP), University of Airlangga (UNAIR) University of Hassanudin (UNHAS), Bandung Agricultural Institute (IPB) and University of Trunojoyo Madura.

“We did not believe that we could go to the final round. We ultimately could present our essay. We had prepared each detail of our presentation,” asserted Candra.

He expressed that he was delighted and proud of being able to participate in the festival and winning over the other teams. He thought that joining a competition was not only attempting to be the winner but to learn new knowledge.