IIIA researcher Christian Blum recently visited the University Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY) in Indonesia, with the aim of furthering the development of AI at the university and in the country. During his stay, Blum conducted a series of activities, including a public presentation on hybrid optimisation techniques and their applications to solve engineering problems. The presentation was attended by about 100 people and streamed online to many others across the country.

In addition, Blum visited a recycling centre in one of the villages near Yogyakarta, where he gave a talk to the locals on the importance of recycling and described the recycling and waste separation system used in Catalonia, as well as its evolution over the years. After the talk, the importance of the visit was highlighted to encourage people to continue recycling.

The researcher's last stop in Indonesia was two different family businesses, an iron foundry and a metal processing company, to discuss the possibilities of using optimisation techniques and to agree with them on the data needed to create an optimisation model. 

As a reminder, UMY was recognised as the fourth-best university and became the best private university in Indonesia by 4icu World University Rankings and Reviews in 2013 and internationally accredited by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) Stars in 2015.