Nico Agung Wijaya

Nico Agung Wijaya is the founder of Jewawud Propulsion Laboratory and the driving force behind its interdisciplinary research agenda. A graduate of the Faculty of Animal and Agricultural Sciences at Diponegoro University in Semarang, Nico's formal education had nothing to do with rockets, circuit boards, or lines of code. On paper, his degree points toward livestock and agriculture — but his mind was always somewhere else entirely: staring at the night sky, wondering how things fly, and asking questions that no textbook in his faculty could answer.

Even during his university years, Nico's dorm room looked less like a student's quarters and more like a makeshift electronics lab. Soldering irons, Arduino boards, half-assembled circuits, and dog-eared copies of physics textbooks covered every surface. While his classmates studied animal nutrition and crop science, Nico was teaching himself orbital mechanics from YouTube lectures, building small rocket motors from hardware-store materials, and writing Python scripts to simulate thrust curves. His passion for rockets, electronics, computers, and everything in between wasn't something that came from a classroom — it came from a deep, almost obsessive curiosity that simply refused to stay within disciplinary boundaries.

The turning point came when Nico first encountered the concept of escape velocity — the minimum speed an object needs to break free from a planet's gravitational field without further propulsion. For most physics students, it's just another equation: v = √(2GM/r). For Nico, it was a revelation. The idea that there exists a precise threshold where gravity loses its grip — where something bound to the Earth can become something that belongs to the stars — resonated with him on a level that went far beyond physics. It mirrored his own life: the feeling of being pulled by convention, by expectation, by a degree that didn't match his dreams, and the determination to reach a velocity where none of that could hold him back anymore.

Entirely self-taught in rocketry, embedded systems, and computer science, Nico spent years learning through trial, error, and sheer persistence. He devoured open-source documentation, built and rebuilt hardware prototypes that failed spectacularly before they worked, and wrote thousands of lines of simulation code to understand propulsion dynamics from first principles. He didn't have mentors in these fields — he had the internet, an unshakeable work ethic, and the kind of stubbornness that refuses to accept "you can't do that without a degree" as an answer.

He founded Jewawud Propulsion Laboratory with a simple conviction: remarkable research can come from anywhere — even a city better known for its lumpia than its launch vehicles. JPL is proof that the next breakthrough in propulsion, AI, or optics doesn't require a billion-dollar budget or an Ivy League pedigree. It requires curiosity, courage, and the willingness to learn everything from scratch if that's what it takes.

"We built JPL because we believe the next great space program doesn't have to come from a superpower. It can come from a small team with big physics and even bigger ambitions — right here in Semarang."

Nico's leadership philosophy centers on first-principles thinking and fearless experimentation. He encourages every team member to question assumptions, break disciplinary silos, and pursue ideas that feel slightly impossible — because those are the ones worth chasing.