Muri records new invention

YOGYAKARTA: The Indonesian Museum of Records (Muri) awarded on Saturday Kokoh Handoko, an alumnus of the Institute of Science and Technology (IST) Akprind in Yogyakarta, a certificate of record for his invention of an electric device called an Electric Current Shock Indicator.

Muri Chairman Jaya Suprana presented the award in a ceremony at IST Akprind auditorium over the weekend. Similar awards were also given to the institute as the initiator of the invention, and Prastyono Eko Pambudi as Kokoh's consulting lecturer.

According to Muri manager Paulus Pangka, it was the first time that Muri had recorded an invention in the field of technology. The device itself, he said, had been tried and demonstrated at Muri headquarters in Semarang on Oct. 17, 2001. A demonstration was also held during Saturday's ceremony.

"After it had been published for one month and no one else claimed (to have invented) the device, then we have the obligation to give the inventor an award and record it as a rare invention," he said after the ceremony.

The invention was recorded as Muri's 658th record.

Jaya Suprana said that he highly appreciated technological works. Moreover, what Kokoh had invented had something to do with human safety. Therefore, it had a humanitarian value and not merely a work of technology.

The device, which may be used as a tool to avoid accidents caused by electric shock was inspired by an electronic device called the full electronic earth leakage circuit breaker (ELCB), which won second prize at a provincial technological innovation competition for students in 1996. --JP