UMN’ Students Transform Wax Wastes into Startup Idea, Winning Competition of Indonesian Ministry of Education, Research

SafeWax Team Presenting Entrepreneurial Idea (dok. Kevin Tanex)

TANGERANG – After competing with students of a number of universities across Indonesia, the Multimedia Nusantara University’s student team won the first runner-up in the “Creative Industry” category in an activity organized by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia (Kemendikbud Ristek RI) entitled “Entrepreneurship of Indonesian Students (KMI) Expo XII 2021″.

Members of the UMN’s student team came from different departments and different year batches. They were Bella Auditha (Accounting Study Program, 2019), Kevin Nicholas Tanex (Electrical Engineering Study Program, 2018), Nabila Amanda Azahra (Physics Engineering Study Program, 2018), and Ivan Johan (Visual Communication Design Study Program, 2017).

In this competition, students were asked to develop their skills and to promote their entrepreneurial ideas. Here, the UMN’s student team came up with an entrepreneurial idea called “SafeWax”. As the team representative, Kevin Tanex explained that SafeWax is a start-up company engaged in social and environmental fields. SafeWax is focused on reducing waste by dismantling the waste disposal cycle into versatile and valuable products, especially wax-based waste.

“What makes the ideas interesting for customers is that the products that we made dismantle the market price of candle products in general. Which is very cheap for a luxury product also maximizes the use of recycled, environmentally friendly, and reusable materials so that they do not harm the environment with more wastes,” Kevin said.

SafeWax Team consists of Bella Auditha, Kevin Nicholas Tanex, Nabila Amanda Azahra, and Ivan Johan (left-right) (dok. Kevin Tanex)

This inspiration of this wax waste treatment idea came from Kevin’s experience when he was in high school. He observed that many candles in the church were wasted. In fact, Kevin said the candles could still be reprocessed into valuable products. Finally, Kevin was motivated to collect used candles and reprocess them into new candles. Then, the realization of this idea developed further with the help of the incubation program organized by Skystar Ventures UMN.

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“Then, as we are required to form a team so that we become SafeWax. Moreover, with a team, the goals or visions or missions can be achieved more exponentially,” Kevin continued.

SafeWax Team presenting its entrepreneurial idea (dok. Kevin Tanex)

Kevin and his team did not expect to win the second runner-up when the list of winners for this competition was announced last Friday (12/11/21). He revealed that SafeWax’s victory in this competition could not have been realized without the help of various parties at UMN. These assistances included product review, deepening of presentation material, and mindset deliberation. He and the team hope that the victory of SafeWax will make UMN better known by the wider community.

“If the traction is running smoothly and the team has free time, [we] just have to run the timeline and the programs that have been previously designed. The idea will hopefully turn to a big business which will in turn open up job opportunities to reduce unemployment in Indonesia due to the Covid outbreak,” said Kevin.

by Melinda Chang | UMN News Service

Studying in Jakarta for the study programs of Informatics | Information System | Computer Engineering | Electrical Engineering | Engineering Physics | Accounting | Management | Strategic Communication | Journalism | Visual Communication Design | Movies and Animation | Architecture | D3 Hospitality | International Program, di Universitas Multimedia Nusantara. www.umn.ac.id