SciencePreneur Roadshow at SMA Bakti Mulya 400: When Mangrove Was Introduced as a Product

Several hundred students at SMA Bakti Mulya 400 in Pondok Pinang, South Jakarta, were invited to look at science from an angle that rarely surfaces in a classroom — not as a body of theory to be memorised, but as a means of making something. The SciencePreneur Roadshow was held on Friday, 21 August 2026, with Kholis Abdurachim Audah, Ph.D., founder and CEO of SciencePreneur, as the main speaker.

An Example You Can Hold

Rather than opening with a definition, Kholis opened with a fruit that grows along the coast. Mangrove is known mainly as a guardian of the shoreline — a barrier against erosion, a habitat for marine life, a store of carbon. What students rarely hear is that parts of the plant can be processed into something people consume.

What the students were shown was Mangrovita, a product SciencePreneur developed from the fruit and leaves of the mangrove. Two forms were presented: a juice made from mangrove fruit, and a steeped drink made from mangrove leaves. Both carry the same brand.

The value of the example lies less in the product itself than in the distance it travelled from its starting point. Mangrovita did not emerge from a single good idea on a single afternoon. Behind it sits a long sequence — observation, research, repeated experiment, formulation, and testing — before anything could reasonably be called a product. For students accustomed to seeing finished results without the process behind them, that is precisely the part worth showing.

From Local Resource to Innovation

One message recurred throughout the session: an idea for an innovation does not have to come from somewhere far away. It can come from whatever is walked past every day. A question about the surrounding environment, a problem encountered at home, or a need that has gone unanswered in the community — any of these can be the starting point for research.

Three things were therefore emphasised to the students: curiosity, the willingness to try, and the ability to see opportunity inside a problem. In Kholis's view, young people need to be prepared not merely to use technology, but to create it.

Where Science Meets Entrepreneurship

The second half of the roadshow highlighted something that is seldom taught alongside the science itself: a scientific finding does not automatically become a product. Additional skills are required — understanding what customers need, building a brand, designing packaging, marketing, and making sure the benefit of the product is clear.

This is where the term sciencepreneur acquires its substance: learning in order to understand, researching in order to discover, innovating in order to create, and building a business in order to add value. Those four steps are what keep knowledge from stopping at the edge of the lecture hall.

Building a Generation of Makers

This roadshow was not technical training, and was never intended as such. Its aim was simpler and harder at once: to shift how students look at a problem. That an obstacle need not always be read as an obstacle — it can be read as an opening in which a solution might be found.

The presence of a founder who has been through the process himself makes a useful point: that building an innovation demands courage, creativity, consistency and a willingness to keep learning — rather than a talent that simply appears.

Media Coverage

The event was covered by several Indonesian outlets on 22 August 2026. Article titles are given in the original Indonesian:

• InfoFilantropi — "Roadshow SciencePreneur: Siswa SMA Bakti Mulya Diajak Ubah Mangrove Jadi Produk" ↗
• BisnisReal — "SciencePreneur di SMA Bakti Mulya: Sains Jadi Bekal Ciptakan Inovasi" ↗
• BisnisTime — "Roadshow SciencePreneur: Siswa SMA Bakti Mulya 400 Jakarta Diajak Ubah Mangrove Jadi Produk" ↗
• BeritaUnggulan — "Roadshow SciencePreneur di SMA Bakti Mulya 400 Jakarta, Kholis Audah Kenalkan Inovasi Mangrove Jadi Produk Bernilai" ↗