community development | Edo Danilyan

CoE MicroPlanet Global Ambassador Program

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 10:00:00 +0700

The Global Ambassador Program (GAP), launched by the Scientific Committee for Equal Opportunities (SCEO) of the Cluster of Excellence MicroPlanet, supports international trainees who have overcome educational or socioeconomic barriers and enables them to strengthen scientific links between the CoE and their home countries. This outreach program was carried out over six days across two partner institutions in Indonesia, combining scientific dissemination, practical skill transfer, and structured academic mentoring.

At the partner institutions, students and faculty identified opportunities to expand training in computational biology and reproducible analysis. The program introduced open-source workflows and offered practical guidance on funded graduate programs and academic applications.

The program was delivered at two institutions, with three full days of activities at each.

Day 1 – Economic Principles of Microbial Growth: Allocation, Trade-offs, and Quantitative Models
Introduction to microbial growth kinetics, bioreactors, and the integration of computation in microbiology, drawing from MicroPlanet WP 7.1 research themes. Around 200 students joined in a hybrid format at Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS), and it turned into a lively discussion about microbiology, research, and career paths in science. The session at ITS was delivered together with Catalin Rusnac from Replifactory.

Day 2 – R for Biologists: Data Wrangling, Visualization, and Reproducible Analysis
Participants worked through an R exercise covering data cleaning with the tidyverse, visualization with ggplot2, and reproducible reporting with R Markdown, introducing a code-based complement to menu-driven analysis tools such as SPSS.

Day 3 – Preparing for Graduate Studies Overseas: Applications, Funding, and Mentorship Session
We went through how to find funded MSc and PhD positions, what selection committees look for, how to write emails to potential supervisors, and the scholarship landscape (Erasmus+, FWF, DAAD), followed by one-on-one mentoring.

At Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang (UMM), we held sessions with faculty members from several departments. The discussion covered similar topics and turned into a thoughtful exchange about research, studying overseas, and scientific collaboration.

On the last day, I returned to my hometown and visited my old high school. Standing there again, but this time sharing my journey as someone who left, studied abroad, and is now doing a PhD, felt quite emotional. It made me reflect on how far the journey has been, and how important it is for younger students to see that pursuing a university degree is possible.

To measure the impact of the program, participants completed a self-assessment questionnaire before and after the sessions (scale 1–5). The results are summarized in the dumbbell chart below.

Day 1 (Guest Lecture) showed modest gains in kinetics knowledge (3.65 to 3.89), economic trade-offs (3.63 to 3.90), and quantitative models (3.43 to 3.78), reflecting increased conceptual exposure.

Day 2 (Technical Workshop) saw improvements across all four metrics: R familiarity (2.90 to 3.50), data wrangling (2.73 to 3.35), reproducibility (3.02 to 3.38), and data visualization (2.67 to 3.38), indicating meaningful skill development during the hands-on session.

Day 3 (Graduate Preparation) recorded the largest shifts. Confidence level jumped from 2.00 to 4.36, application document knowledge from 1.91 to 4.36, program identification from 2.18 to 4.45, and scholarship awareness from 2.55 to 4.00. Participants reported higher confidence and knowledge after the session, although the questionnaire measured self-perception rather than independently tested learning.

Partner Institutions

Institution
Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS), Surabaya
Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang (UMM), Malang

This experience reminded me why science outreach matters.

Standing in front of students and early-career researchers like me, I wanted to show that a path in science, even the unconventional and messy kind, is something real and within reach. I am grateful for the chance to represent CoE MicroPlanet, and it meant a lot to come back and reconnect with the communities that shaped where I started.

The Journey from Vienna to East Java

11,000 km by air. 610 km by road. Two weeks across three cities.

The journey began with a roughly 21-hour flight from Vienna to Surabaya, about 11,000 km with one stopover. We arrived on a Sunday and hit the ground running. Starting Monday, we spent four days at Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS), delivering the program back-to-back through Thursday.

On Friday we packed up and drove about 100 km south to Malang, roughly a 2-hour drive through East Java’s countryside. The sessions at Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang (UMM) ran on Monday and Tuesday of the second week, covering similar ground but with a different audience of faculty members and researchers.

Then came the longest road leg, Wednesday we drove another 210 km east from Malang to Bondowoso, about 4 hours through the mountains and beaches. After a day of settling in and reconnecting with the town, the final session took place on Friday at my old high school. In total, the program covered roughly 11,610 km.

Work With Me!

I’m always open to:

Collaborations on outreach and capacity building
Guest lectures or workshop invitations
Mentoring partnerships

Let’s connect and chat!

Some Documentations

Sharing session with high school student in Bondowoso

UMM Day 1 - Showing participant how the bioreactor works

ITS Day 1 - Bioreactor setup and hands-on session

ITS Day 1 - Over 200 participants consisting bachelor's and master's student

POV during the session at UMM Malang

ITS Day 2 - R workshop and bioreactor development

"Huh, this used to be working?!"

Mentoring for Undergraduate Student

Sun, 25 Jun 2023 17:36:08 +0700

I mentored several undergraduate students on academic planning, research skills, and career decisions. Sessions covered topics like international exposure, personal branding, and data analytics, adapted to what each student needed at the time.

Another mentees won an international academic competition and went on to be accepted into graduate programs at Oxford and ETH Zurich with full scholarships, plus an offer from LMU Munich. I can’t take credit for their success, but I hope the mentoring helped, and it’s part of how I try to pay forward the guidance I received.

If you’re working on something related to climate, community development, or sociopreneurship and want to talk it through, reach out.

BITS Mengajar

Sun, 07 Aug 2022 14:15:17 +0700

BITS Mengajar is a supporting program under social development division in Biology ITS student association at Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, this program is targetting SD Kampung Binaan and aimed to:

provide assistances and services for society in both academic and non-academic matters.
assist students to improve their academic and large variety of skills.
conduct various activities to support locals to have a better acces to education.

To improve Biology students’ self-development, this program provides a Personal Development Program by organizing various activities such as Academic Study Skills Training. Those activities are conducted to support Biology Students to be able to recognize their potential and have a positive impact in the society.

BITS mengajar also provides Mentoring Program to help locals to improve their academic achievement. In this program, Biology Student Association facilitates students to create learning communities where they have opportunities to learn various subjects, to share academic and non academic matters and to motivate one another for better achievement. This program also gives opportunities for students to enroll themselves as mentors to supervise locals.

During Covid-19 Pandemic, this program shifted to online activity. This program provides various online larning material through various platform avaiable online.

Community Development: Mangrove Sister School

Sat, 23 Jul 2022 13:16:32 +0700

The Mangrove Sister School program is one of the programs that provides educational value to the surrounding community in the context of a mangrove restoration program with the Coastal and Marine Biodiversity Reserve concept which has been held by Pertaminas EP and Agrie Conservation in Lembung Paseser.

This program is dedicated to provide basic information related to the importance of mangrove ecosystem, its value and the biodiversity in it. We expect that the local people will be positively impacted by the existence of mangrove ecosystem. As we already know, in order to combat global warming, coastal forests remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the majority of which is stored within the plant. Mangrove tree roots, branches, and leaves that die are typically buried by soil, which is subsequently submerged under tidal water, slowing down material decomposition and enhancing carbon storage.

People who live near and in the surroundings of mangroves rely on them for a living. The trees produce a consistent source of wood for building and fuel, and are highly regarded for their tough resistance to decay and insects. However, commercial wood harvesting for pulp, wood chips, and charcoal has occurred in some regions, raising questions about sustainability. Locals gather plant extracts for their potential as medicines, while mangrove trees’ leaves are frequently used as animal fodder. Local fisherman can find a plentiful supply of fish, crabs, and shellfish in the woodland waters to sell for a living. So, it’s important to make sure that locals can live and rely on it in a sustainable manner.