Dora Sinaga

On the 31st of July, I presented my PhD proposal for a zoom meeting. In the meeting, I received an opportunity to be recommended by the research agency. This recommendation was because I was applying for a PhD scholarship, funded by Indonesian Endowments Funds (LPDP). The zoom meeting took almost 2 hours with 20 attendance.

In the meeting, I also saw the other 2 participants who were doing the same thing. They applied for the government funds and presented their PhD proposal. They had a different topic, but from the same industry, agriculture. Indonesia after a new president selected, some regulations were changed. One of them is the efficiency, government cut the budgets for many projects. Including budget for education. Thus, now with this new regulation, the strategic industry that government focus on is more to agriculture industry. My topic for PhD was totally different. I have studied Hospitality and Tourism Management. My concentration is in AI, which is cutting edge. Even though the topic is prominent, it is not a strategic major for the scholarship. As the funds focus more on STEM and agriculture topics.

At the end of the presentation, we were given the opportunity to be recommended by the research agency for Indonesia. Here I share some of my presentation, which literally still needs lots of improvement. I am glad I had the chance to listen to some of professors who help me improve my proposal.