Weaving the Twilight: How an Indonesian Medical School Teaches First-Year Students to Turn Community Problems into Health Innovations
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Indonesia officially became an aging society in 2021, and many of the conditions that shape the health of its older adults, including loneliness, inactivity, and financial dependence, sit beyond the reach of clinical treatment alone. This article describes how the School of Medicine at Universitas Ciputra, an entrepreneurship-focused university in Surabaya, embeds social innovation into the mandatory first-year medical curriculum. Across a two-semester course sequence called Desain Inovasi Sosial (Social Innovation Design), students learn principles of innovation and social entrepreneurship, then work in small groups with a real community to diagnose a problem and co-create a solution that is validated in the market and designed to outlast the semester. We illustrate the model through Rajut Senja, a social enterprise co-created with a neighborhood elderly association whose members weave doormats from donated garment waste, easing loneliness while generating income and diverting textile waste from landfills. We describe how the model works and is financed, what distinguishes it from existing community-based education, and its implications for scaling and policy.
Source: Social Innovations Journal
Institution: Universitas Ciputra
Language: English
Subfield: Biomedical Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7216721073