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Indonesian diaspora & home-grown champs: Internet heroes of 2014
William TanuwijayaFajran Iman RusadiThe end of the year is time to celebrate those who hacked the Internet in 2014 for all the right reasons
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William Tanuwijaya
The end of the year is time to celebrate those who hacked the Internet in 2014 for all the right reasons.
And today, glasses are raised for two people from two different ends of the spectrum: members of the Indonesian techie diaspora and home-grown founders.
'We witnessed just how far the Indonesian diaspora is willing to pull together for a worthy cause,' Ainun Najib of kawalpemilu.org, said.
Ainun is one of five friends ' the others are Felix Halim, Andrian Kurniady, Ilham Winata Kurnia and Fajran Iman Rusadi ' who, despite living abroad developed kawalpemilu.org as their response to the abundant yet unstructured voting data generated by this year's contentious presidential election.
The website compiled and showcased data from recapitulation results from over polling stations in a neat, accurate and impartial manner, making it a favored reference point amidst the dubious results from certain quick-count agencies.
Ilham said that the website's architecture was key to its performance. The 'genius' system, as Ainun described it, was designed from scratch by Felix and Andrian and later built upon by the rest.
'To ensure everyone's comprehension, data had to be presented attractively, yet while still maintaining simplicity,' Ilham said. 'Simplicity also ensured that everyone could work with the system quickly.'
The ability for kawalpemilu.org to get all that data online was phenomenal as well. Via viral social media campaigns, the website's creators and supporters engaged more than 2,000 volunteers, who digitized data written on vote-related, hardcopy forms.
Fajran said that collaboration with volunteers was wholy based on trust. 'We started with putting our faith in a few people, and this people would, in turn, pull in others whom they trusted. Working based on trust allowed us to work fast.'
'Teamwork, where the right person focused on the right task, was also necessary. If we insisted in doing everything ourselves, we wouldn't have accomplished anything' he added.
Ainun added that the active participation of the Indonesian diaspora through kawalpemilu.org ' several volunteers lived abroad, too ' demonstrated that distance had not erased patriotism among Indonesians overseas.
'I hope the government sees this, and starts to make it possible for the Indonesian to keep contributing to the country even from afar,' he pointed out.
The Five Pandawas, as kawalpemilu.org creators bill themselves ' the name is a reference to the hero-brothers of the Mahabarata epic- were not the only ones breaking the Internet this year.
Towards the close of 2014, e-commerce site tokopedia.com made waves after securing an unprecedented US$100 million investment.
Founded by William Tanuwijaya, the firm was noteworthy not only for the size of the investment, but also because the investment was backed by reknown venture capitalists SoftBank and Sequoia Investments.
William said that the investment had an emotional resonance because SoftBank's founder, Masayoshi Son, served as his inspiration.
'I promised myself that I would build a company that could be legendary like he [Masayoshi] did,' Willan said.
He added that he planned to used the money to make Tokopedia into a Silicon Valley-style company.
'We will spend the next two years turning Tokopedia into a billion-dollar company that launches initiatives that will allow Indonesia to compete with global players,' William said.
Setting up an office fit to attract talent from Silicon Valley to come and share their experiences was also important, William said. The experience that they could share would help boost growth in our young, local startup ecosystem.
William's experience and achievements are a big encouragement to emerging founders. Unlike others, who have studied abroad and worked in prestigious firms, William is homegrown.
'I have never studied abroad so I never had the chance to get that sort of education,' he said.'But I credit the Internet which has opened up the opportunity for me to learn a lot from successful people,' he said.
