Institut Teknologi Bandung

Gemastik (National Information Technology Competition) is a technology competition held by Puspresnas under the Ministry of Education and Culture. The objective of this competition is to increase soft skills, technology, data, and human literacy. There are 11 divisions of competition in the Gemastik, one of which is data mining.

In the beginning, Yulia asked Nindy and Yolanda to join Gemastik in the data mining division. When asked why she chose the data mining division, she answered, "Actually I do like to do experimenting with data. So, I tried to ask Nindy and Yolanda to join this competition because I heard that they too are interested in this field. In addition, my internship is also related to data mining. So in the beginning, we just want to try it," she said.

In this competition ILY-ILY, their team name, presented a topic about detecting depression signs of Twitter users from their tweets by utilizing artificial intelligence. Then, if detected, a chatbot will try to contact the person who is detected to have those depression signs.

To materialize their idea, ILY did some research and set a weekly learning target. ILY even go as far as contacting psychological students from other universities to ask about depression. In addition to that, the help from their supervisor is also very detrimental to their success. With guidance from their supervisor, they know what they need to learn thus optimizing their time.

During our interview, our reporter from Humas ITB got a chance to contact one of the data mining supervisors, that is Fariska Zakhralativa Ruskanda, S.T., M.T., a lecturer from Informatics Engineering Study Program. According to Fariska's observation, the main strength of the ILY team is the determination and motivation of the students and their strong understanding of the subject (especially in natural language processing). Although they haven't learned the materials of the competition from the class, the students were able to pursue these subjects even when they have so many other obligations.

In addition to that, Fariska also added that the ITB teams also drew experience from their seniors who had been a finalist or champions in the previous year. This helps them get an idea of how Gemastik works. The ITB teams also have strong solidarity and teamwork between its members. Then, which is no less important, is the moral and facilities support from ITB.

However, this doesn't mean that their struggle is not without obstacles. Nindy told that she faced difficulties in managing her time because she needs to study for Gemastik as well as prepare her final essay. She admitted that some of the things that she learned is not utilized during the Gemastik competition. Even so, Nindy believed that this knowledge would be useful for her in the future.

Nindy is not the only one who obtained meaningful experience. After participating in this competition, Yolanda realized that in the data mining field, especially in natural language processing there is still so much room for improvement.

On the other hand, Yulia said that she also had the opportunity to learn many things that she would not learn in class. Because of this competition, she was motivated to explore more things about NLP.

Then, Yolanda conveyed a message, "If there is a chance, whether it is a competition, organization, or internship, make the most out of it. Take it as long as you have the time and you really want it, even if it doesn't match your field of study. Also, find correct friends to compete with because that factor is also decisive."

Reporter: Maria Khelli (Informatics Engineering, 2020)

Translator: Favian Aldilla R (Civil Engineering, 2019)