Depok — On July 7, 2026, the Faculty of Science and Technology (FST) held its third workshop, “Introducing to Agent-Based Modeling”. Like the previous session, this workshop was held in person, with Dr. Manahan Parlindungan Saragih Siallagan guiding participants through the material step by step.

In simple terms, agent-based modeling is a way of understanding complex situations by simulating individuals rather than the whole system at once. Each “agent” follows its own simple rules, and by watching how many agents interact over time, researchers can observe bigger patterns emerge, patterns that would be hard to predict just by looking at the system as a whole.

To see this action, participants worked through three real-world-inspired examples during the session, each highlighting a different way small individual actions can add up to something much bigger and often unexpected.

The workshop series is meant to give students more exposure to emerging research areas as well as practical, hands-on skills they can carry forward. It’s also here to stay, with plans to hold at least one similar session every semester going forward.

Among participants was Ased Rehman, an FST student who came into the workshop hoping to bridge theory and real-world applications. He walked away with a clearer sense of when to reach for which tool, and said he’s looking forward to applying both approaches in his future research and academic projects.

“Choosing the right analytical approach depends on the nature of the problem, geospatial analysis helps uncover patterns and relationships in location-based data, while agent-based modelling provides a powerful way to simulate complex systems and individual behaviors,” he said.

With this third workshop, FST continues building out a series that gives students both exposure to emerging research areas and hands-on skills they can carry into their own academic work going forward.