Indonesians are Thirsty of Biotechnology

Who said that the Indonesian students are not interested in science? Indonesian

Biotechnology Students Forum with supports from various institutions held

iBiotech 2008 successfully. This event had attracted more than 1500 junior and

senior high school students and more than 200 science teachers in four cities;

Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, and Surabaya, 3-10 March 2008. IBSF and

partner institutions introduced what and how biotechnology can be applied in

daily lives and its benefits through interactive ways; multimedia and 7 fun handto-

hand experiments. “I didn’t know that biotechnology is fun – usually we just

skip this subject during classes” Dimple, a student from Lab School Senior High

School Jakarta said.

“I am impressed by how much Indonesian students know about Biotechnology. I

have never discussed in such high level with students their age”, praised Terry

Vrijenhoek, Chairman of Genomic Networks of Young Scientists (GeNeYouS) in

Netherlands, who was invited in this event to contribute in challenging

discussions with the Indonesian students. Therefore, we have to be proud to

boast future potential human resources in the country.

Positive and warm welcomes to this successful event have been received from

many people as it was also given by Prof. Suhartono Taat Putra from Medical

Faculty, University of Airlangga. He was pleased with the initiative from the

iBiotech committee to communicate science to young students in such a way.

This is in line with the dialogue of Kusmayanto Kadiman, Minister of Research

and Technology with Prof. Abdul Kalam, President from India 2002-2007 few

months ago in National Science Congress 2007 in Jakarta. He said,” Nothing I

can suggest better than you start introducing science to the youths, the earlier,

the better…” dan we make it happened through iBiotech as a first step!