From Wednesday, July 17th,2024, until Thursday, July 18th,2024, UNPAR attended the USAID HEPI Forum. This time, the HEPI forum’s topic was “STEM Community of Best Practices: Working Together for High Impact Higher-Education Partnerships.” A workshop on “How to Conduct a Compliant Capstone Project Course” was held by the Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember hosted the HEPI forum.
The forum started with a welcoming speech from Mr. Bambang Pramujati, Ph.D as the Rector of Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, and Kayla Smith the Acting Public Affairs Officer of the American Embassy.
After that, the forum went straight to the first panel, “Building Bridges: Developing Partnerships between Higher Education and Industry.” The session focused on developing sustainable cooperation between industry and university stakeholders. This includes further integrated curriculum with industry-linked content, program advisory committees, and investments.
Next, the participants listened to another panel discussion titled “Partnership Opportunities to Increase Quality and International Recognition.” This time, HEPI brought representatives from the United States and Indonesian governments and other stakeholders, such as regional and international accreditation organizations and universities. They discussed strategies for building sustainable partnerships between these stakeholders.
The HEPI forum also conducted breakout sessions that discussed a variety of topics, namely “Global EPICS (Engineering Projects in Community Service)” and “Funding and Sustainability for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Partnerships.” The forum conducted a workshop titled “Global Multidisciplinary Design Course Expansion,” which discussed the resources needed as well as the construction of courses and the administration of courses for curriculums.
The last panel of the HEPI forum was titled “ Future Directions STEM Project Based Learning Initiatives.” This panel discussed best practices as well as innovation in STEM partnerships. The forum on July 17,2024, was closed with a closing speech from Mr. Abdul Rahman, PhD. as the HEPI Country Director, Arizona State University.
The forum was officially closed on July 18th,2024, when the HEPI forum conducted an additional workshop for universities. The workshop was called “Hot To Conduct Compliant Capstone Project Course.” This workshop was specifically designed to teach universities how to make good project-based learning that will enable students to apply everything they were taught in the course.