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View all search resultsFall of a tech darling: Nadiem and the Chromebook graft scandal
Nadiem Makarim was supposed to be different. As the founder of Gojek, he embodied the promise of a new kind of leader, one shaped not by bureaucracy, but by Silicon Valley’s disruptive spirit.
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Former education, culture, research and technology minister Nadiem Makarim (center) walks with his lawyer Hotman Paris (right) upon arriving for an interrogation at the Attorney General's Office (AGO) headquarters in Jakarta on July 15, 2025. Investigators questioned the former minister as a witness in a corruption case pertaining to the procurement of Chromebook laptops in the then-education ministry. (Antara/Sulthony Hasanuddin)
Indonesia is in an odd place, when even a minister who is young, tech-savvy and Harvard-educated, is implicated in corruption.
Nadiem Makarim was supposed to be different. As the founder of Gojek, a unicorn start-up celebrated globally, he embodied the promise of a new kind of leader, one shaped not by bureaucracy, but by Silicon Valley’s disruptive spirit.
When then-president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo plucked him from the tech world in 2019 to lead the education and culture ministry, as it then was, it symbolized hope, here was someone modern, meritocratic and untainted by the old political order.
But as the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) delves deeper into a corruption scandal surrounding a massive Google Chromebook laptop procurement program, that image is fracturing. Behind it lies a story that is all too familiar, one where billions of taxpayer rupiah, meant for children’s education, may have been steered not by national interest but by private ties and corporate collusion.
Between 2019 and 2022, the ministry launched an ambitious plan to digitize Indonesian schools. At the center of it was the procurement of over 1 million Chromebooks, laptops running Google’s Chrome OS, valued at nearly Rp 9.9 trillion (US$640 million).
On the surface, it was a forward-looking move. But documents, testimonies and official statements now suggest the entire project was riddled with problems from the start.
Instead of being tailored to Indonesia’s needs as many schools lacked stable electricity, let alone internet, the specifications were aligned with Google’s proprietary ecosystem.
