After we dealt with the waste problem in Asia (Indonesia) and Germany in part one, I would like to talk about the use of IT in the field of plant cultivation, conservation, and biodiversity in Indonesia in this second part.

Some of you are probably wondering how I can come up with such a topic, which may seem a bit strange at first glance. The background to this story is my old university (UniSA) and its research in the field of sustainability. In one of the alumni newsletters, I became aware of an article about IT and plant cultivation / biodiversity in Indonesia. See the following article.

After reading the article, I immediately tried to get in touch with the IT manager (Heri Apriyanto) because I wanted to learn more about the use of IT in this area. One of the reasons for this is because my home country Germany is increasingly plagued by heat waves and is confronted with a loss of biodiversity. Please see the following two articles from my home community (Link1, Link2).

Unfortunately, the Covid travel restrictions did not allow me to visit Heri immediately and learn more about this topic. Luckily this year things finally worked out and I had the chance to meet with Heri and his colleagues from the research and IT departments to discuss various sustainability topics.

I was surprised that the topics that appear at the top of the sustainability agenda in Germany do not seem to play an important role in Indonesia. As an example, the drought and heat waves that plague my home country are not that important in Indonesia as there is still enough rainfall. The same applies to agro and indoor farming projects, which seems to be of minor importance.

In Indonesia, on the other hand, the topic of biodiversity and the preservation of plant and species diversity is much more important. One of the reasons for this is of course a young and growing population and the necessity to ensure food security. Another, and in my opinion more important reason is that a large number of our medicines are based on herbal active ingredients. Please see the following article for more information.

The preservation of plants and biodiversity is therefore extremely important and this is exactly what Heri and his colleagues are working on by building a database that not only helps to document the current state of plants in the botanical gardens in Indonesia, but also helps to provide information on flowering times, signs of diseases or pests, that damage the plants, as well as to record, document and ideally predict the need for water and fertilization. If you want to learn more about this topic and what Heri and his colleagues are doing, you can learn more in this video.

Heri shared the following picture about the mentioned database or system landscape, which immediately reminded me of Microsoft PowerPlatform applications.

On that day, it was not so important to us whether Microsoft or other solutions would ultimately be used, but rather the exchange and the opportunity to learn from each other how IT solutions can contribute to a more sustainable world for current and future generations.

Heri and his colleagues have a very important task here and I am happy that I had the chance to spend a few hours with like-minded people.