Several years ago Kendro Hendra was asked at a press gathering in Anyer, Banten, how many of the applications that his developers had created had gone down the drain. Sheepishly, he said, "A lot!"

That's what innovation is all about. You toil until the wee hours of the morning every day and create a hundred applications, and perhaps less than one tenth of them will get to market. Even fewer will ever find interested buyers.

Kendro Hendra, the founder and CEO of inTouch, knows this all too well.

His company has been writing various software applications for Nokia since the Nokia 9110 -- the second generation of the Communicator -- hit the market.

His first groundbreaker was the mobile banking application he developed for American Express. It was to be used on this particular smartphone.

"We're all so elated, as it was developed by Indonesians and it successfully passed the extremely stringent security tests at AMEX' headquarters in New York," he said, still beaming with excitement as he talked about how he started it all.

"AMEX gave away a Communicator 9110 to its time-deposit customers with this application already pre-installed on it," he said.

Today, if you buy a new Symbian cellphone, you no longer have to manually set the access points for the voice calls, the SMS center and so on to get the phone working properly. All you have to do is insert the SIM card, and everything will be done automatically by an application called SettingsWizard.

Kendro's inTouch developed the application and compiled the table for almost every operator in the world, and the application looks up the operator and country codes during the setup. It allows you to use a different operator's SIM card on the same cellphone.

"In the past, the setting had to be done manually," Kendro said.

Three years ago, when he was in Moscow, he went into a phone store. The store attendant was explaining something to his customer. Although he spoke no Russian, he eavesdropped. He soon realized that they were actually talking about SettingsWizard.

"I felt immensely proud to see myself how the application we developed here in Indonesia was used in Russia."

SettingsWizard is pre-installed in every Nokia Symbian phone.

Earlier in 2002, when the Nokia 7650 appeared on the market, it was perhaps the first smartphone with a digital camera.

But, once the photos were captured, what could you do with them? The cellphone only had 4 MB memory capacity, and there was no way to expand it. The Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) technology was already there, but the service was available only in a few areas. Another problem was that not everyone had a cellphone that supported MMS.

Always seeking to create a practical solution where none was available, Kendro came up with a service that he called AirCards. It allowed Nokia 7650 users to share the photos by uploading the photos to a dedicated Web site.

Kendro's entrepreneurial spirit keeps growing. As he admitted, many of his ventures didn't pick up, but some did. His latest brainchild was MORE, the online reward exchange that he built in partnership with Indosat, Alto ATM network and Nokia Mobile.

On the outside, the business looks very simple. Behind the screen, it involves very complex arrangements, especially because the venture had to get a lot of partners on board in order to succeed. But we wouldn't think of Kendro as a true entrepreneur if he didn't have the strong drive to move ahead.

Kendro went to Canada to study architecture but ended up graduating with a bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg.

"After a while I started taking a few computer courses to satisfy my curiosity. Before I knew it, I had taken more courses than the required electives for my architecture degree," he recalled. That was how he majored in computer science instead.

Does his background in architecture help him in any way?

"I love architecture because it allows us to create new things from ideas. When I apply the methods to computer programming, I can build things faster and cheaper than constructing a physical building."

After his graduation in 1981, Kendro returned to Indonesia. He immediately started a build-operate-transfer business that enabled high schools to offer programming classes using Apple II. His first company was named Eastern Computer.

When he was appointed a distributor of Apple Macintosh computers, he started InMac in 1989 to handle this business.

He set up inTouch to design information kiosks for Singapore Tourism Promotion Board. The touch-screen kiosks, which were built based on Apple IIfx computers, were deployed in 52 different locations on the island.

Later on, following the success of his AMEX application, Nokia began offering the opportunity to develop custom applications for its mobile phones.

It was when he set up inTouch Wireless Services. Each time you see an application with a name that starts with "Air" on a Nokia cellphone today, it's the fruit of inTouch developers.

Applications such as AirFax, AirSecretary, AirGuard and DataMover are just some of them. Some are used only in Indonesia, others in the Asia Pacific region or even worldwide

AirGuard is a very useful application. If someone steals your N90, the value of the confidential data you have lost may worth a hundred times the price of the expensive gadget. While this piece of software won't protect you against the physical theft of your N90, it will give you some digital protection and the chance to retaliate.

The software will detect if a different SIM card is inserted. The device will silently send an SMS to your other cellphone. You can then send an SMS to the stolen phone to backup and delete all your data remotely.

Not only that, you can call the person currently in the possession of your cellphone even after he changes the SIM card over and over.

This is possible as the application uses the IMEI code, the unique ID number assigned to every cellphone in the world as it leaves the factory.

You can even instruct the phone to produce high decibel sound any time you wish, or have it dial a number that you have pre-specified. Another good thing is that all the charges will be paid by the thief. So, at least, he won't be able to fully enjoy his high-tech but illegally acquired cellphone.

Today, inTouch employs 57 programmers in Jakarta and around 20 in Surabaya.

Talking about royalties, Hendro probably has accumulated more patents than any other Indonesians in the area of mobile applications. The patents may have been bought by Nokia, but his name is still mentioned as the inventor.

Certainly, many of his older applications have been rendered unnecessary due to advances in technology. Still, there are some that are still in use today.

"I have a patented AirTicket, which enables users to print out payment receipts on a printing kiosk. The application is still used by KDDI in Japan," he said.

Some other applications that his team has developed cannot be used because the regulations do not allow them.

"Usually, technology contributes between 20 to 30 percent of the success of an application. The bulk of the success factors are non-technical issues," he said.

Kendro is married to Linda Widjaja and has three sons. Two of them are now studying in Canada.

By the way, as his people work in Indonesia, why did he decide to have inTouch's main office in Singapore?

"It is more convenient to fly out to other countries such as Australia, Hong Kong and Thailand from Singapore. There is no 'fiscal tax' to pay," he said. Besides, Singapore offers a long list of incentives for tech companies like his, including grants, subsidized training, subsidized housing for employees, subsidized office space.

In Singapore, his office is located in IDA's Teletech Park. "Who could resist these allures?" he asked.

Popular

Magnitude 6.5 earthquake strikes off Java island: authorities

Philippines to endure extreme heat until mid-May

Indonesia one step from Olympics after beating South Korea