Public Relations USU - After successfully being selected as one of the participants in the event organized by SingHealth Duke NUS, namely the Asia-Pacific Global Health Innovation Hackathon 2025, the RodentWatch Team of the Universitas Sumatera Utara (USU) won 2nd place in this event. This activity itself took place for two days on January 17-18, 2025, in Singapore.

 

At this event, the Rodenwatch Team competed with participants from other countries. There were 60 participants or 16 teams from 12 countries, including Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam. RodenWatch and the other participants were challenged to innovate a data processing system related to health and climate change.

 

In the process, RodentWatch and the other participants received mentorship from Duke-NUS Medical School, the National Environment Agency, the National University of Singapore, Open Government Products (OGP), Singapore Biodesign Fellows, SingHealth, the World Health Organization, and other participating organizations to help them refine and implement their solutions.

 

SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Centre, in collaboration with the SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medicine Innovation Institute, the SingHealth Duke-NUS Global Health Institute, and the SingHealth International Collaboration Office as organizers felt that the topic initiatives could lead to transformative solutions to address the most pressing health issues in the region (Asia-Pacific). One of these is to advocate, mitigate, and manage adverse health impacts.

 

The RodentWatch team, led by dr. Sunna Vyatra Hutagalung MS., Ph.D. from USU's Faculty of Medicine, presented a platform that offers real-time surveillance data and creates risk maps, highlighting areas prone to disease from rodent attacks. The innovation developed by the RodentWatch team aims to facilitate public information and protect the population.

 

As one of the three winning teams in this event, the RodentWatch USU Team's journey will still continue into the 6-month incubation stage at Singhealth Duke NUS to further develop their innovation. Later, dr. Sunna Vyatra, along with 3 other RodentWatch members, namely Dr. Anita Zaitunah S.Hut., M.Sc from the Faculty of Forestry, Dr. Erna Budhiarti Nababan, M.IT from the IT Facilkom, and drh. Rita Rosmala Dewi, MSi., Ph.D from the Faculty of Animal Husbandry, Tjut Nyak Dien University, is mentored by dedicated experts in the fields of health, sustainability, and innovation.

 

The participants will conduct intensive face-to-face incubation sessions for two weeks in Singapore, and the rest of the mentorship will continue virtually.