05 Jul 2023

Three FEB Students Win as Favorite Champion of MSME Financing Book Review Competition

Three exceptional students of the Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS), claimed the esteemed title of Favorite Champion under the Students/General Category in the MSME Financing Book Review Competition. The book was written by the Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs, Airlangga Hartarto. The three students, Yasir Ahmad Azumardi Azra awarded as 1st Favorite Champion, Sagita Wahyu Dewanti as the 3rd Favorite Champion, and Fahrur Rozie as the 5th Favorite Champion.

The book entitled “MSMEs Financing” was launched in 2021, and discusses the strategic role of MSMEs to the Indonesian economy. It explores the remarkable resilience exhibited by MSMEs in facing various crises in the country. Moreover, the book sheds light on the challenges faced by these enterprises in securing financing, particularly through banking to obtain additional capital.

The Registration for MSME Financing Book Review Competition was opened from April 17 to May 31, 2023, and managed to attract a total of 229 participants. The review competition is divided into 2 categories. The first category is designated for teachers/lecturers, and the second category is for students/general public.

Though the winners were announced on Wednesday, June 21, 2023, the virtual competition organized by the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia, hosted a separate winner award ceremony on Tuesday, June 27, 2023.

The judging process for this review competition was carried out on June 1-9, 2023, led by the Chairman of the Board of Jury, Iskandar Simorangkir as the Expert Team of the Coordinating Minister for the Economy. The members of the Board of Jury consist of the Plt. (Acting Officer) for the Deputy for Macroeconomic and Financial Coordination of the Coordinating Ministry of Economy, Ferry Irawan; Editor-in-Chief of InfoBank Magazine, Eko B. Supriyanto; PEBS Advisor at Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Indonesia, Nining Soesilo Indroyono; and Director of Tempo.co (PT Info Media Digital), Y. Tomi Aryanto.

After the competition, Yasir said that in compiling the book review there were obstacles, especially managing the time between reviewing the book and other assignments, since the deadline for the book review submission and other lecture assignments fell on the same date. “I’ve not read the book before. Thus, I have to read the book first, of course with screening techniques, thus, I only need a short time to read. That way, the drafting process takes approximately a week before the deadline for review collection,” he said.

According to Sagita, writing a book review is quite difficult because the reviewer must read the entire contents of the book first. However, they also need to pay attention to the composition of the book to find the weaknesses and excellence of the book. “It can’t be done in a short time actually, but I finish it in 3 days.”

Meanwhile, Fahrur said that at first he was not interested in participating in the competition, but in the end, he tried. “I happen to have the book on MSME Financing by Mr. Airlangga Hartanto. I finally tried to start writing the review at 20.00 pm on the final day of the submission day,” he said.

The three FEB students were grateful because in the competition, with more than 200 participants, they won the Favorite Champion title.