With his involvement in a Small World Project, Roby Muhamad, an entrepreneur and also an Indonesian sociologist who focused on research in the field of social networking, won an award as one of the 10 national inventors of Tempo Magazine in 2012. Not only known for his discoveries in the Small World Project, but Roby is also the co-owner of Yogrt’s location-based dating app. Roby is the youngest of four siblings from Prof. Dr. Wahyu Karhiwikarta, a sports medicine specialist, and Dr. Hanariah Wahyu, a pediatrician. He lives happily with his wife, Tika Sukarna. For his educational history, he was very interested in physics, therefore, for his bachelor’s degree, Roby chose to study at the physics department at Bandung Institute of Technology. (Azlifa)
Roby started his college journey by earned his bachelor’s in physics from the Bandung Institute of Technology in 1998. Then he continued his journey and earned the magister degree in theoretical physics from the same university as he received his bachelor's. But apparently, he was more interested in studying about universe. In the interview session, he said “we have a society so I learnt sociology and after that psychology,” so then he changed his mind and earned another magister degree in sociology from the University of Colombia, New York. To convince himself, Roby went to his professor with two Ph.D. and he said that American political science, sociology, and even biology is found out by physics, so basically doing all of them is related. Then in 2010, he completed his education with a doctoral degree in the same department and same university as well. Now he uses his knowledge by became the lecturer in the Faculty of Psychology, University of Indonesia. (Najlaa)
Roby Muhamad childhood had more freedom on choosing his path in life, even though both of his parents are doctors in science Roby Muhamad had little pressure on him. This is reflected in Roby Muhamad’s life which is very spontaneous, contrary to most parents which pressured most kids to be something more. Roby’s parents let Roby do his own things as long as it doesn’t hurt him in the long way, like joining a band on high school or taking sociology after taking physics. Roby’s parent’s attitude towards Roby is then transferred to how he raises his kids, by giving them more freedom in their decision on life. (Eca)
Given his life now as a scholar and an entrepreneur, he needs to manage his image as both a scholar and an entrepreneur. His way of managing it is quite a bit of relaxing, that is by not thinking about it and just do what you are supposed to do. Most scholars doesn’t get the privilege to be noticed that much, that is why he is very lucky to delve and to dig something that is on the rise, social media. For him, the inability for people to put him for work because of his educational background, pushes him to create his own workplace. The path that he created was eased by meeting a lot of great people in his time at Columbia University and not ignoring the fact that great universities are great because they are filled with great people. Looking up to him, the ability for him to not be afraid of making changes is what drives him to be successful at this point. He studied first in economics but got bored with it so he changed his degree to social science. He was inspired by a professor who has a PhD in both physics and social science, so he took a big step and changed his major. (Arya)
Roby Muhammad also believe that living in digital era, we as a communication student are in advantage as for today battle are fought by narrative and social media is a perfect medium for us to do just that. He says that in a complicated and complex world that we have today, reality has become such an intricate matter that on it’s own is hard to understand. He argues that in the near future, those who are able to use this to their advantage will surely be the one who control the world narrative. With that he also believe the lesson we have learned is that the one who winning in life is not the one who reach up to the top and become number one only to be replaced the following year, but the people who stay in the game as long as possible. It entails that not only we have to be good at knowing what our society wants but also how to follow it through and stay relevant. ( Kania )
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