Sprout E-course Alumnus Story: Daniel Hermawan

Daniel is a Business Administration student at Parahyangan Catholic University in Bandung, West Java. He was inspired to become a social innovator after reading about pressing environmental issues such as illegal logging and water shortage. He refused to believe that affecting change was something beyond his reach as a citizen because the problems were simply too large in scope. Instead, he started thinking about ways he could contribute to ameliorating the negative impact of such problems. Central to his initiative was the idea of inspiring others to believe in themselves and their ability to make a difference. The most daunting challenge he faced in starting his project was to introduce changes to a culture of apathy and carelessness that predominated among the citizenry. People were accustomed to using only one side of paper sheets, throwing rubbish in the river and wasting water by letting it run from the tap even when they were not using it. To accomplish the needed change, he had to resort to creative methods to stimulate peoples’ interest in the issues and make the project simple enough to ensure maximum participation. Another difficult challenge that Daniel had to overcome was bureaucracy whereby several of his proposals took a long time to get approved after several attempts. He relied on his tenacity to carry him through and bring the project to fruition. He says the Sprout E-Course gave him the guidance he needed to develop a systematic approach to handle the designing, planning, and the assessment phases of his project. The implementation of the project resulted in considerable reduction in the consumption of paper by 70%. People were successful in adopting the necessary lifestyle changes that were required to achieve that reduction. Daniel would like to expand the scope of the project in the future. The impact this project has had on him is considerable. He is a very environmentally conscious person and this is reflected in the way he conducts himself.