Tag: women

[RECAP] Women in Blockchain

Posted on | by angin

Last Thursday, Asosiasi Blockchain Indonesia hosted an all-woman panel discussion on practical blockchain applications from industry experts with Meredith from ANGIN and Connector.ID as moderator. Speakers included Pandu Sastrowardoyo of Blockchain Zoo, Daphne Ng of Singapore Blockchain Association (ACCESS), and Merlina Li of Indonesia Blockchain Network shared their thoughts. If you couldn’t make it, don’t worry; here are the top four takeaways and main points of the discussion:

  1. Blockchain is for women! The panelists pointed out that blockchain technology and its accompanying community are well-suited towards women. Whereas other nascent technologies at the time (i.e. big data) involved big risk with intangible or uncertain reward, blockchain is something built upon years of existing technology with monetary value and actual application. Blockchain communities and fellow “blockchain bros” have also been more supportive of women than their counterparts in, say, the data science field, according to the panelists.
  2. Blockchain is not sexy: You should view Blockchain as a technology tool that will be part of your solution. Maybe 20-30% of your product will have blockchain aspects, but the rest will be other vital components such as user experience, marketing, business model, team, etc. Just because you have a blockchain startup does not mean you can ignore the other considerations of your company.
  3. Blockchain and social impact go hand in hand: The use cases for blockchain largely involve socially impactful causes. Examples include supply chain logistics to encourage fair labor conditions, creating tokens for supporting refugee relief projects, and renewable energy among others.
  4. Blockchain both creates and requires more efficient and transparent systems: Blockchain has the capability of creating a more transparent society; transactions cannot be erased or duplicated on the blockchain, making it ideal for use cases like medical records, digital identities, and crossborder transactions (among others). However, this also requires a world where adopters are willing to be transparent. For instance, a hospital adopting blockchain technology for medical records must be comfortable with the implications – transparency in treatments and patient medical history, risking patient realization of possible medical malpractice. While this should encourage more cautious medical practice, it is easier for hospitals to simply refuse to be transparent. Thus, while the technology may exist, the market may not be willing or ready for the adoption of the technology.
  5. The future of blockchain is bright in Indonesia: Indonesia’s large population and friendlier regulations make for a great market opportunity for blockchain startups. Whereas in Singapore blockchain solutions must compete with other existing and established solutions, there is no such thing in Indonesia. An example is a centralized medical record system – something Singapore already has, but something Indonesia lacks. Therefore, a blockchain solution may face more resistance being adopted in Singapore versus in Indonesia, where the market is craving that solution.

ANGIN and Connector.ID are happy to have played a part in this fruitful discussion on the future of blockchain technology, especially as it pertains to Indonesia. We hope to continue being a part of these events in the future and look forward to the next one!

 

Nina Moran: Co-Founder of GoGirl!

Posted on | by angin

Tell us a bit about yourself.

My name is Nina Moran and I am the co-founder of Aprilis Co. Within Aprilis Co,, we have GOGIRL! Media, a retail company called Picnic, and a B2B garment manufacturing business as well.

How do I begin? Well, I started in 2004. About a year before, my sister was a design student. For one of her projects, she was supposed to create a magazine. Although it was just a school project, we kind of got over-excited about it and it became a full business plan. Everything was done – every page, every article. Her aim was just to get an A and we kind of forgot about the project until our dad found our proposal and said, “Well actually, this is really really good.”

At the time, the scene wasn’t anything like now. Now we have angel investors, VCs, crowdfunding – all these ways to find money. Investors now are actually much more visible than when we got started. There was no way that young girls like us – I was 25 and my sisters were 22 and 17 respectively – were going to create a media company. It was insane. Nobody was ever going to believe us or fund us. I said that to my dad – because of those reasons, there is no way to start this business. At the time we needed US $150,000. We didn’t come from a wealthy family. It didn’t make any sense.

So I went to banks. The banks told us we were simply too young. There was only one type of loan we could actually apply for, called multiguna. But the interest rate was very high – 18%. Our dad said, “You’re gonna lose money before you make money, but 18% is insane. So I have some money and just use it, but if you mess up then there’s no way your sisters are going to go to college. This is it, this is what I’ve been working for for 20 years.” And we were like “There’s no way our dad has that kind of money.” Like he lives outside the city and he lives in a kost. Every time it rained it would flood up to his waist, and whenever I’m there I would help him move his furniture and whatever. “You have $100k and you don’t rent a house? WHY?” And my dad turned to me and said because I can take it, and this is my savings for you guys.

So the next 6 months we studied the market and distribution channels, got to know people. A few months after that, we launched in January 2005. After that there was a whirlwind of all kinds of things. We got cheated on for US $60,000 and all kinds of things like that, you know? But the thing is we made it through.

In the publishing market, how many others are giving young girls a voice?

Not many, I’m afraid. There used to be a lot – over 14 players. A lot of them have closed already. Now, there are only two: me and one other. We don’t really like that, actually. Lots of people say that’s good, the cake will be yours, the advertisement budget will be yours. But when the industry isn’t sexy, it isn’t fun. We compete in certain things, but we also collaborate on others. And when we don’t have people to collaborate with, it’s not cost efficient in certain ways. So I don’t like it when my competitors are closing down.

What do you think is GOGIRL!’s recipe to success?

Stories are what makes GOGIRL! alive. It’s how we talk to our audience; we evolved and most people don’t. I really hate when people say media is dying. I don’t think so. I think it’s because [media] hasn’t evolved in a long time. If you don’t evolve or innovate, it’s natural that you become irrelevant. For us, print is still giving us a lot of income. But someday if print isn’t there anymore, the stories behind it will still be there. So the question is, how do we make these stories heard and go to the right audience?

We have different strategies for different platforms. Print is something for you to play with – to write on, to cut, to paste, to share. That’s why we call it a “playzine.” We shifted October 2016. Since we did, we started to see more growth. So that’s the strategy for the print. It’s like a hobbyist thing. For our website, we craft short stories, but in the feminist point of view. It’s deep but short. Those are the kinds of things that get lots of pageviews. And the content on our YouTube channel is super fun, super light. Like how to create the perfect winged eyeliner, what’s inside your bag. Every channel has its own strategy. That’s our growth strategy.

What’s the Indonesian market’s appetite for feminism? And what’s GOGIRL!’s own take?

I think that Indonesia is very diverse. And because we are very diverse, there’s a market for everyone. There’s a market for both liberal feminism and conservative feminism. That’s the way it is in Indonesia. You just have to market it right. You can’t be everything. You can’t be accepted by every group and you have to be okay with that.

For us, feminism is respecting every female’s choice, whatever that is. But we want you to make that choice a conscious choice, whatever it is. So you’ve thought about it, this is my decision, this is what I want to do. We believe that’s power. And we might disagree with you. For example, we don’t believe in getting married at such a young age. There are those who disagree with us on our site. And that’s okay, if that’s what you think. But that’s our point of view. Why are you thinking about marriage now? Shouldn’t you be thinking about what you want, what you dream of, what you aspire to be? It’ll come to you when it comes. But why do you have to think about it now? But if that’s your choice, if you’ve thought it through – then it’s power. It’s your choice. And we like that you have a choice. So that’s what we believe in and that’s how we write the angles on our publications.

How empowered are Indonesian women today in terms of pursuing their own businesses, their own goals, their own choices?

There are still lots of challenges for women all over the world. But I think Indonesia has a slight advantage. We have Kartini. And we have a proverb: “Heaven is underneath your mother’s feet.” Meaning that women are quite respected, quite looked up to in a way. Because we have female heroes as well, we are more progressive in ways versus places like the United States. But having said that, there are so many ways we can improve – for instance, the disparities between women in rural areas or even outside of Java versus those in Jakarta. These women still have lots of challenges compared to us here in Jakarta or in other big cities in Java. There are a lot of cultural barriers, as well as barriers to opportunity due to geographical access. We don’t really see many startups in Kalimantan for instance. Then again, the population there is also not as high as that of Java’s. But I think it’s more due to cultural and geographical access. How many venture capital firms are there actually in Sulawesi or Kalimantan? Technically, entrepreneurs could always access via call because it’s the internet era. But if you don’t live in Jakarta, it’s like going back and forth, back and forth for potential investors. It’s very costly.

Can you elaborate on the term, “cultural barriers?” What exactly does that mean for our non-Indonesian readers?

Well, it’s very similar across many cultures. The expectation that females still belong in the kitchen kind of thing, or that in some cultures, having a son is more desirable than having a daughter. Things like that. Oh, and the belief that if we [females] are too smart, too dominant, too ambitious – most women think that it’ll be much harder to find a spouse, things like that. There are even some subcultures in Indonesia where the father is very dominant and doesn’t allow their daughters to pursue higher education. In a way, it’s almost like we’re second-class citizens.

How can we start combatting those stereotypes and barriers to improve access to opportunities for women?

Fintech helps a lot. I really think so. I’m so happy that there are so many fintech companies that are running now. With fintech, you can help a lot of people in rural areas or people outside of Java. It’s super easy, people can simply apply online [to gain access to funds]. I think that’s super awesome.

I also see that women themselves are the biggest barriers to themselves. A lot of self doubt, over thinking. Lots of things. Yes, there are cultural barriers, religious barriers. But I see mostly it’s ourselves that are barricading ourselves to our futures. We forgot that we have to invest in our own self-growth. Go to seminars. Read books. Meet new people. Ask questions. Indonesian people hate asking questions. Those kinds of things, we have to unlearn from the past.

Have you faced any challenges unique to being a woman in an industry where you’re positioning yourself in a feminist light?

Although the media industry seems to be female-centric, the number of female owners is very small. In the entire media scene right now there are only two female founders. Femina Group and us. Everything else is founded by men. The owners, the founders are all men. We are still very much a minority in this industry. I think the female founders are minorities in most industries, actually.

I do have one memorable anecdote. When I was putting together Resonation (a women’s empowerment conference), I was trying to find sponsors. One prospective sponsor saw our proposal and invited us to their office to have a meeting. At the office, the CEO said to me, “Oh I know about this, this is that women’s empowerment dumb s***.” I was like, “Did I hear that out loud? Was that in my head?” And I was just looking left and right to my staff, and even the staff was horrified. It means that I didn’t actually hear that in my head. “I beg your pardon?” I said. He replied, “No, no, I mean why would I want to sponsor this?”

I was just opening my laptop and beginning my presentation. So I just closed it again and said, “Because of men like you, sir. That’s why I care about this women empowerment dumb s***,” and then I just walked out. Like, what just happened, this is 2016!

And how do you get past all that negativity? How do you brush that off despite the doubt, negativity, and resistance you face?

I guess I kind of recruited my support group in a way. Before I started creating Resonation, most of my network was male. I didn’t actually know a lot of female entrepreneurs or anyone like that. I was like, “Ugh, this is too much testosterone, I need females.” So I followed a lot of people on Instagram and invited them to go on a trip with me. And I mean we all knew each other by reputation but I had this idea of taking a trip together and we actually did. It was 14 of us, all alpha females. All of us had the exact same fear; we knew we are alpha so we were scared we’d all bite each others’ heads off. But because of the commonality and similar struggles we face, we actually got along really, really well. We actually became each others support system. We ask each other for advice, we would go to each other’s events. I think before I met these women, it was hard. All my male friends are awesome but they don’t understand the struggle of being female. I’m really grateful to have these 14 females that will just tell you if you’re doing a bad job or a project and they’ll tell you in your face. Like, “Hey I don’t think that’s gonna work,” and that’s so refreshing. You know there are people on your side.

What advice do you have for people with similar aspirations?

Do your due diligence, but stop overthinking. I think it’s a plague among the 20 year olds. Seriously. What is scaring you so much? Yes, there are risks, but be prepared and then jump. Don’t jump just to jump. Of course you’ll drown. But do your research. And then start. Because once you start, there will be so many lessons you will have to go through. And you’ll learn from that and you’ll get better from that. Stop overthinking already. Enough. It’s plaguing all the youth. Even if you are prepared, there will be so many things you’ll never anticipate. You’ll know what to do when you are in the situation. And if you don’t know what to do, then you’ll find out. Learn. Ask. Do whatever. Because once you’re there, you’ll have no choice but to get better or find solutions. That’s it.

 

Samantha Gunawan & Josephine Bahari of Blueboots Farm

Posted on | by angin

Tell us a bit about yourself.

S: My name is Samantha Gunawan and I’m the founder of Blueboots Farm. I’m 28 this year and I graduated 2013. Upon graduation I worked in Singapore for one year at an industrial engineering firm, and that’s when I realized that I didn’t suit the office life. I’m more of a outdoor person, so I tend to look for something where I can move around more. One weekend, I came back to Jakarta and I was casually talking to my sister like, “Hey, I’m really interested in organic food,” and she’s like, “Oh I know Ibu Helianti Hilman from Javara, maybe you can contact her and just talk.” So I emailed her and she was just like, “Hey Sam, why don’t we just meet the next day at 3 pm at the Javara Kemang office?”

Ibu Helianti ended up offering me an internship at Javara. At first, I thought no, I should be getting a full time job rather than an internship. But maybe because I felt I was still young, I felt that I could still explore. And actually my parents also supported me in the sense that they told me, “You should make all the mistakes now and explore since you’re not married yet.” So I thought, okay maybe a three-month internship would be a good start to see whether I like the industry. Those three months turned into one year.

Ibu Hellianti wanted to open a new side business; she’s doing food processing right but she wants to do fresh produce, too. She has a lot of connections with the hotels in Jakarta and she has farmers in Bogor, but she doesn’t know how to connect the two because she’s too busy. She sees this girl (me) who wants to know more about organic farms, so she’s like, “Sam, you be the middle person and see how you can convey what they want to the farmers.” That’s where I think the trigger was for me to get into agriculture.

J: My name is Josephine Bahari. I graduated in 2016 with a graphic design degree. I was working at a graphic design firm for a year. I actually always had this passion for eating healthy and living a healthy lifestyle and I’ve always been interested in Blueboots and but never got the chance to ask Samantha about it. I became tired of my job. Samantha happened to want to meet up (she’s my cousin), and she proposed that I help her. I said yes straight away and the rest is history.

I’ve been helping Samantha with the creative side of Blueboots and a little bit on the marketing side learning more about actual farming and where food comes from. I don’t think people are actually exposed to the agriculture side of organic food. I’m actually pretty blessed because I know where my food is coming from and how it is being nurtured and harvested into our dishes. And I think it made me more passionate and mindful of what I consume.

What is the health food scene like in Indonesia?

S: I feel like the health-conscious market is growing, but people still don’t really understand what “healthy” is about. For instance, gluten-free is assumed to be good but actually it depends on your body type. A lot of people are being eaten by marketing. Indonesians follow trends. So if Americans or Europeans are eating kale, we’re eating kale. But actually there’s a lot of other local plants that can replace that. We’re missing our own health culture.

J: i think it’s definitely super niche. The health scene is growing but there’s no personality to it. We’re really following Americans or Australians. It feels like everyone is copying each other. There’s no creativity or actual thought put into it. I think Salad Stop is actually a good model to follow. They have fresh produce as well, and there’s a story behind their business. I think their business is more conscious.

There’s a real psychology in the food business. It’s not just the taste, but also the story behind the food, where it comes from. The health market here is more about marketing than actual health consciousness. In short, it’s growing, but its growing very slowly.

Why is it important to know where your food comes from — why is that narrative important?

S: I think growing up as a city girl, I realized that I felt so disconnected with where my food came from and that I just took things for granted. So if you don’t finish the food, you don’t tend to have any guilt. But once you go to nature and you realize how seeds grow into plants and that it takes about 3-4 months… then you realize that you should not waste your food, and how you should treat the food. You need to minimize your cooking process because certain ways of cooking has more nutrition. I think when you know where your food comes from, you just become more appreciative and you tend to appreciate the ingredients themselves.

How was the transition between working for someone to becoming your own entrepreneur?

S:  Well, working for someone is really good. You don’t have to think about future steps, you don’t have to come up with a business plan, you don’t have to be accountable to your employees. Your mindset is just to do your job, but you’re not thinking about the whole business aspect of that firm. But when you’re doing your own thing, you have to put everything together, put the ideas into action. It takes more motivation, it takes more effort. You need to have passion. If not, I don’t think you can do it at all. I really love agriculture, so I think I jumped into the business with an excitement; it’s something I look forward to. Agriculture is not an easy task, so there were definitely a lot of worries. But you don’t know until you try.

The food industry in general is it male dominated or female dominated, how do you feel as a woman in that space?

S: I think I’m stepping into two industries; one is agriculture and one is food processing. The agriculture industry is definitely male-dominated. You rarely see a woman working on a farm. In terms of how I feel…I actually feel accomplished. At first, I felt intimidated but after awhile, when you know what you’re doing you feel good about it. I don’t feel any different from the men. Sometimes I feel like I’m even a little better.

As young women, do you actually find it hard to get people to see you as capable?

J: I feel that way in a lot of situations. Even sometimes when I go out with Sam. The people that she meets are experienced. They know more about agriculture. I do feel super intimidated, but I think the key is that I want to learn. That’s why I’m always in the back, listening and learning. I do hope that one day I can speak about Blueboots Farm like Sam. I’m actually in the process of learning right now.

S: I feel confidence is built up with experience. If I’m not experienced and I talk to people about things that are more advanced or technical, I tend to be honest with them and tell them, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m new, can you teach me?” People are actually open to that. If you are humble to them and tell them you don’t know, they will open up to you. So I’m never scared to go to a space where I meet people at a higher level than me because I think it’s a learning process. I’m sure one day I’ll be at that point where I can understand. One thing I’ve learned is that if you don’t understand, it’s because you don’t know yet. It’s not because you can’t.

Where do you see yourselves in five to ten years?

S: My perfect five year plan is for me to have good family time while at the same time a career. Not a career that will take my whole life and time away from family. So what I’m doing right now is i’m finding new partners and collaborations so that one day I can still run this while also spending time with family. Work-life balance is very important to me.

J: I definitely want to be involved in the food industry. Not necessarily towards the tertiary side. More to the primary side where Sam is at right now. I really want to learn about food and where it comes from, as well as helping get the word out that eating healthy is not hard. It’s actually so simple, but people just don’t understand it. I think that is actually my passion, and I’m learning little by little. Slowly. Learning about farming and maybe learning to talk to people about it and finding a business that can convey it to people.

M: How do you see women coming into the food industry? How are they changing the food sector?

S: I’m very impressed by all these women. Nowadays I see that women are more business-minded. They get things done quicker and more efficient than men. Even my mom. I feel like women are more meticulous. You need someone like that in the company. Every company needs a woman. They’re the drive behind it.

J: I think males – at least in Jakarta – are not as interested in the holistic and organic lifestyles as females are. So I think it’s actually a good thing. As women, we have this mother-like instinct, taking care of people and ourselves. Not saying that men don’t possess that, but I think women are more expressive about it. I think that’s why we see a lot of women in this sector. We want to take care of people. That’s why social entrepreneurship is more female-dominated. They don’t just want to earn profit, but they want to create impact.

Any advice for other girls looking to jump into the industry?

S: If you want something, just do it. Explore more. If you keep exploring, you can definitely find how you can connect your passion with work. I also feel like you cannot be lazy. Keep on finding your purpose in life, what you want to do. Don’t wait until you’re 50 because then it may be too late. Start as early as possible.

J: I relate to the laziness part. I procrastinate a lot. Recently I’ve learned to have that go-getter attitude if I really want to succeed. The key is to just not be lazy. To always have that drive. Find that drive and what you like. Just excite yourself.

 

Farina Situmorang: Managing Partner at Catalyst Strategy

Posted on | by angin

Tell me a bit about yourself.

My name is Farina Situmorang. Five years ago I moved back to Indonesia and started a services company called Catalyst Strategy. We focus a lot on marketing and digital strategy, helping companies and even political clients in creating campaigns. In the last five years of my journey, I dabbled in a lot of other companies; by dabble, I mean starting three other companies. Right now, I’m only focusing on Catalyst and am on the board of a beauty company. Catalyst provides consulting services for marketing, communications, and crisis strategy. We take on a lot of interesting projects, including those involving Blockchain technology.

How did I get here? Well, I started my career in Indonesia, and I’ve always been working for technology companies, in marketing and sales roles. I started in IBM, Microsoft. Then I went to the United States for business school. After that, I moved to a company that you might still know, Blackberry in Canada, doing their strategy at corporate headquarters in Waterloo, Canada. Then I moved to San Francisco, where I worked for a small marketing automation startup. Following that, I worked for WhatsApp (acquired by Facebook). Now I’m here.

Such a diverse journey! What made you want to get into the tech entrepreneurship scene in the first place?

Part of it is wanting to prove yourself and show that you can succeed in front of others. You kind of also believe in an idea. When I was in San Francisco, I was fired (this is before WhatsApp) and I thought to myself, “What am I going to do next?” I’ve always wanted to do entrepreneurship for some reason; I think it runs in my family, so it was kind of like, “Oh maybe it’s time to do it.” Because at that point, what’s there to lose? I was sleeping on a couch already.

The only idea I had at the time was to take a lot of the strategies, techniques, and tools that I’ve learned through my technology marketing experiences and use them in a more socially impactful project. At the time, I thought this would be the presidential election. So that was it, actually. I thought, “Okay, I’m gonna come back home and I’m gonna run the digital campaign for a presidential candidate.” I came back to do just that and convinced my two partners to leave their full-time jobs to do it, too. They’re still my partners today. We basically all came together for that particular idea, which in the end we managed to do a year later, but not without blood, sweat, and tears. We got rejected so many times and we thought we failed so many times. But fortunately for us we were rejected by the right people and we got OK’d by the right ones, too.

How do you motivate yourself to keep going in the face of rejection? What’s your strategy to cope with it?

I’m not gonna lie, it always sucks. I think most entrepreneurs, or even investors or founders, we try to kid ourselves and think that “Oh, failures are so important and being rejected is part of success, and you will only learn when you make mistakes.” But at the end of the day, it doesn’t feel good. We have this idea of romanticizing failure, but in the end we still don’t like it. And I don’t like it. But it’s reality. You get rejected all the time. I still do.

To add to that, it’s actually quite easy to be rejected by others that you don’t necessarily care so much about. But when it comes to receiving feedback from people you are closest to – say your partner or your spouse or your parents – that’s a different level of hearing your mistakes or listening to your failures, so to speak, as they’re being put in front of you by people you care so much about. And you want their approval so much.

How I deal with it is not taking it too personally and realizing that a lot of things are not under my control, understanding how I can do better next time, and asking myself, “is this for me, is this not?” Just having that self awareness, that’s how I deal with it. And how I cultivate self awareness is through meditation and self reflection. I actually do it religiously every morning – it’s how I start my day. It’s something you kind of have to build.

As a side note, my husband keeps on telling me I’m really bad at receiving feedback. But it is what it is. I said, “Well, there’s content and then there’s delivery. And your delivery sucked!” (laughs)

Have you faced any challenges as a female entrepreneur and CEO?

I get invited a lot to panels on women in technology or girls in tech or whatnot. You know, sometimes I question it. Like, this is 2018 and we’re still calling female CEOs, “female CEOs” instead of just CEOs. The term is not a “boss”, it’s a “boss lady”. Things like that.

In terms of gender-specific challenges…I realize that we tend to be very permissive. I was asked this question a while back and I was like, “Honestly I don’t feel any differences being a woman in the tech space or running my own company. I don’t think I’ve ever felt discriminated.” Until you know, there was a time last year when all these women founders came out and they named a few VCs that were treating them inappropriately. And all these stories came out. I actually had an interaction with one of those VCs. He lingered in my hotel during a business trip out of town. Yet, at the time, I didn’t think there was anything wrong about it.

You know, how permissive women can be…it’s mind-boggling. I tend to let it go, let it slide. It’s almost expected of them to do that to me or other women. As if it is okay for some men to allude to you being pretty or beautiful or whatever in a business setting. And when they do these things and you’re kind of just like, “Ugh whatever, it happens all the time, right?” So that was like a realization moment for me, to be honest. I didn’t know what to do in that situation, and I still don’t know.

Another example: I was in a restaurant for a meeting only a few days ago, actually. And the ratio of males to females…I was the only female. There were 14 other CEOs and investors, and they were all male. I was the only woman there. And the only question they asked me was, “Are you married?”

That was probably one of the very first times that I had to command a presence in a room, versus people already gravitating towards me or asking me questions. If I didn’t ask enough questions, I don’t think they would’ve seen me there. The environment was aggressive. This is just another anecdotal example.

But the truth of the matter is that 80% of the time, I don’t feel any differences. But there’s always that 20%. I don’t really like to play the victim or the woman card because I don’t feel victimized and I don’t feel like I’m not given the same chance. But maybe I should be speaking out more.

It’s a known fact that an all-female founder team doesn’t get as much investment in the VC game. There are VCs out there that blatantly would just say no to female founders. And they say it very openly. These cases are not ok. I think I probably also need to educate myself on how best to deal with that.

How do we get more girls to be CEOs, managers, partners of firms?

For one, when it comes to choices and options, anyone – regardless of gender, sexual orientation – should have options and choices. And once you have the option, the choice, people should be free to do whatever they want to do.

I dont think it’s a question of should or should they not want to be leaders? Is being a CEO a good thing? I don’t think it’s good or bad. I think it’s just a choice. If those women want to take this choice or exercise this option, then yes I think the ecosystem and industry should be nurturing anyone – not just these girls – who wants to achieve these positions. I could say the same about people coming from outside elite universities, or people coming outside of Java island. These people also don’t have enough opportunities, for example. I think that the conversation should be a lot more broader.

Do you have any advice for first-time entrepreneurs who want to embark on their entrepreneurship journey?

I think first and foremost, you really have to understand why – why do you want to do this? Because you know, if your excuse or your reason to start a company is to make money, there are easier ways to make money. Starting your own company might be one of the riskiest ways you could possibly take. Ask yourself over and over, “Why am I doing this?”

Then, there’s what kind of entrepreneur you want to become. Our company did really well in the beginning doing services. It’s when we decided to stray from our path – what we’re supposed to do – and tried to dabble here and there… that’s when we didn’t do so well. There are going to be investors and other entrepreneurs and other founders that will ask you why you’re doing the things that you’re doing. They’ll ask, “Don’t you want to achieve bigger and better things?” and you’ll want to believe that it’s true. People will come to you if they see you as somewhat capable and they’ll want you to push your boundaries. You have to decide whether you want to be that kind of entrepreneur or not.

Nowadays, people think the only way you can do a startup is to look up to these big companies and aspire to be like them – the Grabs of the world, or Uber, GO-JEK, Facebook. You have to realize how many people actually become that, what it takes to get there, and whether or not that’s for you. I think that was a very painful learning for me over the last five years. Because your ego says you want it and you can do it, and probably you can if you persevere and go through that, but is that actually something you want? And are you willing to give up the things you need to give up to get there?

How about advice for current entrepreneurs?

Asking these really hard, truthful questions is very important. Why? For me, the elegance of the consulting process is something I love. Not everybody is so passionate about that. If that is what I love to do, then why do I want to do all these other things that comes with being the CEO of something like GO-JEK or Traveloka? There’s a lot of operations and routine, which is not what I do best. So knowing yourself is very important for entrepreneurs. Self awareness is so key, and the ability to question that all the time, to ask if that’s something that you want.

Also important is knowing that you probably won’t be great at everything. Knowing that will help you decide who to partner with, who to found the company with. If you don’t know that, you should know that. As I said, I’m much more strategic. I actually don’t really like looking into details. I would make a really terrible CFO. That’s just not me. So you need to partner with people like that and surround yourself with people who are better than you are at doing all these things that you can’t do.

When is the right moment to pivot? To scale? And when do you decide to stick your ground?

The notion of growth and scale and expansion can be tricky. Like why? Are you not happy with being very premier and boutique and just good at what you do? Or do you really need to scale up? You need to ask yourself how much money you need to make at the end of each month. And then your business decision, your business model should reflect that.

It really all comes back to business fundamentals. Will there be a market for what you’re building? Will people pay for it? How hard is it to sell to other people? If it’s so hard, you have to question whether or not you’re doing the right thing. It’s like a test. When things are moving in the right direction, it will still be hard. None of this is easy, but it’s not going to feel like you’re swimming against a current. When it comes to building something that doesn’t have a market and the business fundamentals aren’t there, you’re going to get questioned so much more. 10x, 100x more the usual amount. Swimming against the current is not fun. You’re not going to be moving anywhere. So I would question that.

What is one tangible step to achieving success?

On a lot more practical level, my advice is to seek mentorship. I think what a lot of younger people tend to take for granted are the opportunities to be mentored and coached. They tend to want to go through things on their own. They don’t seek enough advice.

I didn’t get here on my own. I have a lot of mentors and advisors and coaches that have helped me get to where I am. It’d be impossible without them. Nobody can open your perspective more than those who’ve done it before. If you want to be a CEO, then you need to start talking to CEOs. Because they’ve been there, they’ve done it. It’s very important to surround yourself with people who you aspire to become.

In my company, there’s a lot of younger employees. They tend to stick to their own classmates from university or high school. You need your peers of course, but at the same time you need to be talking to people who are older. People who have been out there in the world doing many other things. If you’re not doing that, then your perspective isn’t really open. If you’re aspiring to be a CMO or COO or founder, then you need to be talking to them. I don’t think that’s being taught enough at local universities. In business school, I was told to reach out to as many alumni as possible. That mindset is not being talked about enough here.

Do you have any mentors or role models that you constantly look up to?

Yes. And they come in different forms. You kind of realize that people are not perfect, and you take what you can from different folks. For example I look up to this one CEO and he always gives me very pragmatic feedback on my business decisions, for example. But that’s the only advice I would get from him. I wouldn’t ask him for any personal stuff.

I very much look up to a group of my girl friends. I seek advice from my friends who are investors, other CEOs, and my own husband. He’s my constant coach and mentor. I look up to my grandmother very much. She is probably one of the most successful entrepreneurs I know but has also failed multiple times. She was a widow at 28 with five children; my mom grew up without ever seeing her father. One day she started a textile factory on her own and ended up becoming worth tens of millions of dollars. Her story is fascinating and means a lot to me.

 

Fany Okthalia of Wonderlabs Academy

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Tell me a bit about yourselves.

My name is Okthalia. I’m a business major student. Aside from being a student, I’m also involved with female empowerment. I inspire to be a changemaker, no matter what others say. I’m really concerned about women’s rights and how women are usually misjudged in society. Maybe that’s what inspired me to do something and be the voice for women to be heard.

My name is Isthofany Irfana Azkiya (or Fany for short) and I am a female software engineer. I always wonder why people hold the stereotype that women cannot be skilled in tech? Why they can’t be prominent in the tech industry? Actually, women can make it as programmers. My goal is to change the perception of women in the tech industry, to show that women can be programmers, too.

Can you tell me a little bit more about the inequalities you’ve noticed in the tech industry and society in general? What stories out there have inspire you to do this?

Okthalia: Actually if you ask it like that, I’m afraid it will be out of scope of our concern in Wonderlabs Academy. but I’m just going to say what I feel. In Indonesia, some people  – whether we like it or not – some people think women still belong in the kitchen, or are born to be housewives, cooking and taking care of kids. And when a woman has a higher status than a man, nobody wants to approach her because men certainly want to be higher in status than women, right?

There’s something that really bothers me a lot — how religion is mistakenly correlated with culture. For instance – I’m a Muslim, and Islamic tradition does not promote disrespecting women. But somehow in [Indonesia] we still believe that women are not capable of leading. It’s,  you know, the belief that women just belong in the kitchen and need to have kids and everything. It is true that women have emotions and might be more empathetic than men, but that doesn’t mean that the degree of a woman is worth less than that of a man.

So in starting Wonderlabs Academy, what challenges have you faced? How do you make yourselves keep going?

Fany: We just started the pilot project, so this is the first batch, the first cohort. The enthusiasm is good. We got 78 applicants, but we could only accept 8 due to limited resources. We luckily have had no hate comments or objections or anything like that.

Okthalia: The challenges we face are actually general challenges. It’s a challenge people face in running a school, such as how to convince the participants that what they’re learning matters, and teaching the participants effectively. Another challenge is in finding resources to teach them.

What’s your vision? Your long-term goal for Wonderlabs Academy?

Fany: I hope there will be more women in technology. Women are good – we are better than men in some ways (laughs). Just kidding. But we have to be confident. We can do it.

Okthalia: Actually, the tech sector is really interesting and it really brings benefits to women. We understand that women want to take care of their children. Actually, you can do that in the tech industry – you can work from home.

What are some tech trends or news that excite you?

Fany: We want to support our government program – 1000 Startup Digital. 1000 Startup Digital is a government program in which the government wants to support and create 1000 startups. It’s something that is new for Indonesia, but startups are rapidly growing here. For example, GO-JEK, Grab, Kitabisa, Bukalapak, Traveloka, etc.

What is one thing you want to tell girls out there who want to be developers but are unsure about themselves?

Fany: We have to be brave and believe that we can do it. If we are really patient and really want to learn, we can be good programmers.

Okthalia: For me, for the developer, it’s that yeah, I think it’s pretty much like Steve Job’s message: If you want to succeed in a goal, you have to be curious and dig deep to find the insights you need to get there.

 

Crystal Widjaja: GO-JEK SVP Business Intelligence

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Tell us a bit about yourself.

My name is Crystal Widjaja and I work at GO-JEK Indonesia. I am purely a data person; what that means is I’m constantly look at trends, metrics, KPIs, and creating new KPIs so that the business can grow and evolve in its strategy and decision-making process.

What inspired you onto this data science path in the first place?

A lot of people would look at my history and say, “Hey that’s not very data science. That’s not very ‘data’ at all.” I actually graduated in political science – in empirical methods – but secretly I’ve always been very data-driven. The reason why I majored in political science was because I wanted to do polling statistics: understanding the correlations between different types of demographics, how they vote, and how, say, a three-party system creates different results from a  two party system. These are the kinds of things I was really interested in from the data side.

There’s a lot of manual data collection in political science, and in research in general. Learning how to optimize and create good data structures was just a natural evolution. And from there – given that I’m a lazy person sometimes – I learned how to write code, like Python, and SQL. That just leverages your potential so much more, right? A lot of that has been very useful to push me into data science and business intelligence.

What got you to take the initiative to write code? How do you recommend a beginner start learning?

For me, it was actually working on annoying manual problems that led me to start learning VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) on Microsoft Excel. From there, I figured that if I could tie together Python into VBA, I could be even more productive. A lot of GO-JEK is the same way in that we are very iterative. We’ll ask ourselves, “What’s the easiest thing that’ll 10x us?” and once that 10x is done, we’ll go back and ask “What’s the next thing that’ll 100x us?” So that iterative thought process of, “Okay, how do I do 80% of the work or get 80% of those gains right now?” is in our company culture and fits me very well.

What did you use to learn those programs?

I’m actually very good at Googling – I think that’s an underrated skill. (laughs) But actually there are quite a few resources on W3Schools for SQL, for example. Udemy and Coursera have great R programs. All of these free resources can actually get you about 90% of the way. That other 10% of mastery is really finding a challenging problem that you can work on and practice with.

And what was an early challenge that propelled you forward?

One of the things I was working on at the time was research on different startups. I wanted to see what people were saying about startups. I had a list of startups that I had captured from Crunchbase, and I wanted to generate the most recent news article about each one. So if I were to go into Google and press search, using time as a parameter, how could I automatically get that first result? So I actually did that on Excel VBA with a Python script as well.

Pivoting towards more startup questions, what are some key differences you found between US startups and Indonesian startups?

I think what I have seen is that people here are much more passionate and much more interested to learn. There’s a lot of active learning that happens in Indonesia, especially at GO-JEK. Here, we encourage people to seek out problems and solutions themselves, rather than waiting for someone to teach them and waiting for someone to train them directly. It’s a lot more of, “Hey, there are these problems that no one has ever worked on before. Are you interested in picking these up as challenges that you want to prove yourself with and identify best practices on your own?”

In the US, I’ve found that there’s a lot more passive learning where the best practices are all around you. You raise your hand and there’s a mentor right there next to you. That passive learning, while great (you do learn a lot), doesn’t push you as far. The challenge in Indonesia and the challenge for startups in general is that we have to pave our path by ourselves. It’s very new.

And that’s why this younger generation of students really excite me. I absolutely love having recent grads join us; they are the pioneers that don’t realize how hard it is to do something, so they will work the hardest to accomplish these things.

How do you see Indonesia and its nascent startup scene versus Silicon Valley? What kind of potential do you see? What do you find similar?

That’s a really great question. From what I see in Silicon Valley, a lot of the really meaningful things have already been done. What’s being created there are like assisted living apps for millenials. That’s not really inspiring; it’s not really impactful.

What I see here in Indonesia are people really working to solve hard, fundamental problems that improve the lives of people around them across all levels. There is that expectation that Indonesia will become that next tech hub. I think we have a lot ot live up to, but I do see there are a lot of new organizations, new startups — there’s so many meetup events that are extremely inclusive. The ones I had attended in Silicon Valley were actually less inclusive because they had that senior mentality, whereas here it seems like everyone is so willing to pull each other up that ladder rung. I actually think we will do much better because of that inclusivity and that diversity of people.

What are some obstacles you see?

Traffic, for one – like how do you get all these people to a meetup and start at the right time? That’s actually a literal and logistical fundamental challenge. Even we at GO-JEK face this. For instance, at AI Saturdays we start at either 10:00AM or 10:30AM; it really just depends on whether or not it’s raining. Hopefully as we develop that infrastructure and increase that ability to connect each other, we’ll actually enable other people to meet up more frequently and be more dependable.

A huge obstacle in the tech scene here is that it’s quite difficult to source developers for startups. How do we make Indonesia a more attractive place for quantitative talent in fields such as data science and technology, and how do we attract girls into that field?

I think there are a lot of junior developers, and so the question is: how do we create a mentorship system so that we continuously refine and polish the existing skillsets of the people here? I know there are a lot of beginner meetups and beginner events, but seeing more experts put together a more polished curriculum, that’d be interesting. I know Hacktivate is great and there are a couple of other coding schools that are developing these best practices. I think in time this will happen, it’s just that we started a bit later than Silicon Valley. But we will actually, I think, surpass them.

Yes, there aren’t that many female developers. I think that this partially has to do with the expectations that young women have as they’re growing up. They currently see a lot of male developers. There aren’t a lot of good examples of females in tech for them. I personally would like to spend a bit more time ensuring that female developers are paid attention to, are given that exposure. All female developers have this responsibility to just be present, to just stand out there. And being present inspires that younger generation. Although you may not see that impact for several years, you need to influence that generation to see that this is actually something that they can do.

Have you faced any unique challenges as a female in data science?

I work mostly in business intelligence, but I do sit with the data science teams as well. I’m actually blessed that GO-JEK has such an innovative and inclusive culture. Our company is so diverse that I’ve never felt prejudiced, actually. And that’s what makes GO-JEK great. Our attitude is about inclusivity and solving difficult problems. And that diversity of thought across gender, ethnicities, and backgrounds actually allows us to come up with more innovative solutions than other people normally would. I love the fact that we are a very distributed and culturally dispersed team because I’ve heard interesting insights that I never would have without that diversity.

How would you recommend people deal with those workplace situations if they do face that?

What I can talk about is what has been really successful at GO-JEK. For us we are very open. We have leaders who actually push feedback sessions. They actively tell us, “Hey, make sure you take an hour of your time every week with your team to do brown envelope sessions. Write feedback.” One of our 10 values is actually that criticism is a gift. Being able to give helpful feedback and tell people, “Hey that isn’t something we really value in our culture,” or, “Hey, that tone you took wasn’t really correct” — that kind of openness allows us to communicate very openly and fix any problems we might have. A lot of these situations perhaps could be handled with more transparency or with better policies in place, and I think GO-JEK has a very safe structure. You could tell people things and know they will receive feedback well.  

And for those whose companies don’t necessarily share GO-JEK’s culture?

It’s difficult for me to say that there is any universal solution, but I would say that progress has to start with yourself. Be the progress you want to see. If I see injustice, I will actually call it out. That is personally important to me. Ask yourself, “What are your virtues, what are your values,” and act on them on a daily basis. We can’t expect other people to take responsibility for the injustices we see; if you see a problem and you have the power to make a difference, then why not go and make that difference?

And I see around the world, a lot of people are picking up on that sentiment. There’s a lot of women’s marches — in Jakarta, for instance —

Yes! And it all starts from one person, right?

Yes! And so how can we keep the momentum going?

Communities are one of the most important things that I think really sets Indonesia apart from other places. The amount of community here already allows us that freedom. If someone in your community is hurting, your community here is usually small enough and know each other well enough to all stand up and fight for you as well. I would say, build a community, rally together for social causes, and ensure that people communicate well. That is probably the best way.

What do you think is the source of the gaps that exist in terms of resources and support for women entrepreneurs in Indonesia? What can be done to address them?

Interesting. I think a lot of these gaps stem from inherent bias. When people grow up seeing that all of their leaders are male, they internalize this and assume this to be the right approach to take. So they promote more men, they raise more funds for men.

For this, I appreciate that there are actual foundations that recognize the need to reverse that discrimination with women. FemaleDev is a great example of this. But beyond that, what can we do? It’s more about creating better systems for performance evaluations, right? Understanding that what a person does should be reflected in their performance reviews, rather than their gender or appearance. I think even Google does anonymous review cycles as well.

It’s a tough question, and a systematic problem. Purely I think a lot of what we can do is for that younger generation, so that when they grow up they don’t have those inherent biases as well.

What is one message you’d like to give to girls and women who are aspiring to be the next Crystal, the next GO-JEK SVP, or president even?

Aw, I’d be honored. I would tell them that they shouldn’t let anyone tell them they can’t do that, or that it’s not a role for women. Even I heard that as a kid. I had wanted to play the drums once, and some boy told me, “That’s not for girls.” I actually let that stop me. So I would say, don’t let anyone stop you. If you have a belief or a passion for something, the internet is there. You don’t need a teacher in front of you; you can learn almost anything on the internet. If you have a passion, if you have a dream, it’s actually your own discipline and motivation that’s stopping you. So why let that stop you?

If you could create any app that you wanted, what would that be?

To be honest, I would probably make a GO-DONATION service. Matching people who need help with donors. Now that we have GO-PAY, you could just donate directly. You could see – you know, this is the person’s social cause or financial cause that they’re working for. It could even display options like, “This is a place that needs two hours of volunteer services and this is where to sign up.”

 

Sunarni Widyastuti of Repong Indonesia

Posted on | by angin

Tell us a bit about yourself.

My name is Sunarni Widyastuti. I am from Repong Indonesia, a social enterprise that provides environmental services for tourism within the state forest area in Lampung, as well as agro-tourism outside of the forest area. Our aim is to assist the forest farmers in the area, to be less dependent on forest resources, and thus to prevent further destruction to the forestlands. By finding alternative sources of income for local people and their economy, we are able to maintain the sustainability of the forest, protect its biodiversity, and increase the animal population. For example, we help locals manufacture products made from non-wood materials such as honey, handicrafts from bamboo, etc.

We want to enhance environmental awareness as well as nurture the ecosystem balance and sustainability of the lives of the people surrounding the region through business. Business is one of the keys to ensuring environmental preservation – that the environment is continually maintained. We hope to increase the population of wild animals and maintain harmony within the community. That is our hope.

What motivated you to work for this enterprise?

First, because we have a vision to maintain the balance of the forest ecosystem and prevent it from being exploited. Secondly, in doing so, the local community needs to find new ways of earning a living. Thus by using a tour permit, people are able to sell forest resources legally while contributing to the local economy. Previously, much of the forest area was deemed illegal for extracting resources whereas now farmers can benefit from the forests and maintain a livelihood. Our priority is within the state forest region as well as outside this area.

We also strive to protect the animal population. At the moment, we have a conservation program for animals prone to extinction such as the rhinoceros as well as a variety of bird species. Visitors are also invited to plant trees together to promote forest regrowth from forest fires. We are also experiencing human conflicts with elephants within the forest. In order to be a sustainable business, we have to make sure that people are not dependent on the forest, and that the animals are also not disturbed.

What particular challenges have you faced thus far?

At the moment, we are having difficulties with sustaining our projects financially over a longer period of time. We try to fundraise, however, and have received a considerable amount of local government grants and village funds. However this is still not yet optimal, so the role of our NGO is to provide intensive assistance to the local community in the case that the government has not been able to meet our financial demands.

How do you go about overcoming these obstacles?

 

Generally, we rely on the sharing of community resources and mutual cooperation. For example, we reach out to local governments and districts when we are urgently short on funding. After that, we look to NGOs such as WWF and WCS. And if there are still shortcomings, we look for more donors until we fulfil our needs. Indeed, it is not sustainable, so it is our role as an NGO to network and attend forums on entrepreneurship for example, to improve our business. Either way it is not easy, but urgent matters can always be overcome. We have had 20 years of experience in this field, and the community has been able to handle business independently.

What can we do to help this cause?

The development of our enterprise is something we need to prioritize at the moment. Particularly in terms of the sustainability and scalability of it. Both of these aspects are important as our business does in fact need diversification so that it can become attractive to buyers and investors. Because of the nature of services, there needs to be some sort of business diversification which is why we offer some tour packages. So the packages may have things to diversify. Secondly, sustainable practices needs to be implemented to ensure our the preservation of the forest and our future.

 

Siti Fuadilla Alchumaira: Co-Founder of Empowomen

Posted on | by angin

Tell us a bit about yourself.

My name is Siti Fuadilla Alchumaira. I am the co-founder of a women’s community initiative in Lampung called Empowomen. It is a forum which aims to develop the potential of young women in Lampung and increase women’s leadership and participation in society. We select women to participate in a four-month program involving activities that focus on capacity building, project management and team building, with a final stage of implementing a social project that targets local women as beneficiaries. Our hope is that our female participants can develop these skills to use for their careers and become leaders who can mobilize the community to solve existing social problems within our society.

What inspired you to build this initiative?

First, I’ll give some context about the gender dynamics in Lampung. Currently, there are only 4 women leaders out of 40 community leaders in Lampung, while only 23% of parliament is represented by women. For these reasons, as well as the high rates of violence against women in Lampung, we decided to invest in women. If we can raise the standard of women leaders within the community, then the awareness and sensitivity to solve issues related to women will inevitably increase.

What sorts of issues do women currently face in Lampung?

In Lampung itself, there is still limited support and access to general information about the options that women have. We are not just talking about women’s access to information or developments in Jakarta or Java, as we are still quite far away from that reality. Here, women’s aspirations are still limited to domestic roles which is a mindset we want to change. We strive to raise awareness and lead by example to inspire women to do anything they can with their skills and abilities. We are not limited by our gender and should be able to build a career in whatever field we choose.

What sorts of challenges have you faced so far?

Until now, we still rely on grants and have not been focused on monetising our project as we are currently focused on raising awareness and capacity building. We are still unsure about the kinds of products or services that we can develop to monetize and thus support the sustainability of Empowomen. These are the strategies we need to work on moving forward.

How do you stay motivated despite facing difficulties?

We are grateful that accessibility is increasing and we are becoming more aware about the importance of funding in supporting the sustainability of our project. Perhaps one thing that keeps us going is the fact that we are certain about the ‘why’. Why are we doing this? Because we believe in the benefits of our project, and feel continuously encouraged and humbled by the mentorship we have received thus far, which has allowed us to increase our own capacity. The main thing is to keep learning, keep trying, and if it fails, just try again.

What can we do to help as a society?

Naturally, most of our team is female, but we also recognize the important role of men in achieving our vision. One of our values ​​is inclusiveness, and so both men and women are invited to support our initiative and the societal issues that affect women more generally.

 

Lientje H.K. Mamahit: Founder of UD Makaarwen

Posted on | by angin

Tell us a bit about yourself.

I am Lientje H.K. Mamahit and I am the owner of Eufraino. We produce a variety of plant products that are processed to be used as traditional medicine for health. I am also coincidentally the Chairwoman of the Association of Traditional Medicine in North Sulawesi. Our products come in the form of instant powdered drinks made from ginger, temu lawak, and turmeric, which are considered natural herbal remedies. We combine these ingredients with fruits and vegetables such as mangosteen, soursop, and carrot, among others to enhance the flavors. My latest product is a 3-in-1 variety consisting of mangosteen combined temu lawak and ginger, which I recommend for people who work a lot, people who tend to eat an oily, fatty diet, and for detoxing in general. The reason why I made these into instant powder was because it turns out that after multiple test trials, that these fruits and vegetables produce higher levels of vitamins when dried and grounded.

What motivated you to start your business?

In the 1990s, I was working as a pastor at a hospital in North Sulawesi when I suddenly became sick. The doctors gave me a drug injection, after which I fainted. It was from there that I realized that my body could not take in chemical drugs, and that’s when I discovered herbal medicine.

Then in 2000, I began to build my own business. I started with only 1 kilogram of ginger, temu lawak and turmeric. For every kilogram, I was able to make 30 sachets of herbal drink. After receiving so much positive feedback and orders from friends and family, I had the confidence to grow the business. Now there are 10 instant drink products under Eufraino which have been distributed to most supermarkets in Manado, as well as stores in Tomohon and Tondano including Transmart Carrefour. My current production per year is 30,000 sachets. At the moment, I am starting to develop green tea, which has become somewhat a global trend. Green tea in powdered form is generally considered higher in antioxidants.

What sorts of challenges have you experienced in developing this business?

This business is not without its challenges. In terms of finding capital, I relied on bank loans. However we have been lucky enough to get support from the Ministry of Agriculture to develop our product. Business growth now has reached 10% every year. The Ministry of Cooperatives has also provided us with mentoring and coaching.

Can you share some of the other initiatives you have been involved in?

In 2011 I was also given a community award by the Ministry of Agriculture called the LM3 (Lembaga Mandiri yang Mengakar di Masyarakat) for outstanding achievement in agribusiness. Those who received the LM3 were directly recruited by the Ministry to work as coaches at the Rural Agricultural Training Center. Because a lot of agricultural output is sold unprocessed, its value is remains low. For example, rice farmers generally directly sell their harvest in its unprocessed form for around Rp.10.000 per kilo of rice. But when the rice is processed into flour, companies like Rose Brand sell bags of 100g for a lot more than the unprocessed rice itself. This is the value added from processing that we aim to promote to agribusinesses.

I have also visited various cities in Indonesia and abroad because of invitations to attend seminars and symposiums on herbal medicine. So my knowledge increases after attending each training session, seminar and symposium.

What do you hope for Eufraino going forward?

Our product is ready for export, especially our 3-in-1 drink consisting of mangosteen, temu lawak and red ginger. With the global health trend at the moment, there is definitely a market for it – particularly with its  great health benefits.

 

Reita Annur: Dompet Dhuafa

Posted on | by angin

Tell us a bit about yourself.

My name is Reita Annur. I am from Dompet Dhuafa, a humanitarian NGO and a Lembaga Amil Zakat (LAZ) — a national organization that has been recognized by the state. We collect funding from the Muslims community, specifically from the ZISWAF (Zakat, Infaq, Alms and Wakaf) community which is channeled to the dhuafa people or the needy. The reason why we follow this is because we are a unique NGO that receives funding but also provides funding for beneficiaries in accordance with the provisions of Muslims. As for Islamic funding, it is a requirement to have eight beneficiaries that come from Zakat. Whereas for Infaq and Wakaf, Wakaf can be more general idea – you do not have to be extremely dhuafa or ‘in need’. But we also receive investment funding from CSR companies for instance, because in addition to channeling finance for dhuafa community, we are also running a social enterprise which attracts investors. The profits from these investment will of course, return to the dhuafa community.

What kinds of women’s empowerment initiatives is Dompet Dhuafa running?

We run a variety of programs. One is the called Warung Perwira or Entrepreneurial Women which aims to empower women. Why did we choose to target women? Because in a lot of households, the husband’s income is often insufficient and not stable enough to sustain the family household. So educating women on how to be able to survive if anything undesirable happens, so they can be independent economically,  foster a household and also be a role model for their children.

What are the challenges in obtaining funding?

We are indeed facing challenges with fundraising outside of Indonesia. However, for the domestic NGO inshallah we already have the trust from the people of Indonesia. In terms of scaling up fundraising to go international, we are still lacking. In fact, we already know the theory of fundraising, it’s just that we are still not confident about the application and execution of it. The language barrier in making a proposal is also an obstacle.

What challenges have you faced in building this enterprise?

We strive to empower the people in need, or dhuafa. So the challenge is how to educate these people, improve their welfare and income at the Provincial Minimum Wage (UMP) level. However, in the implementation sometimes we collide with the characters that we help, because as a channel of Islamic funds, we give grants rather than stocks or loans. This character is sometimes a bit difficult to be formed so the success of a program that we run in area differs depending on the character of the receiver. With some programs in Central Java, we are very successful and even able to scale up the industry – for example, initially we built 10 dairy farmers and it is now almost a village, with the main income coming from milk dairy cows. We provided 10 cows initially, which has now reached nearly 200 dairy cows. However, when we conduct the same program in other areas, sometime we get different results. So, there are conditions – conditions on the ground that are sometimes out of our control. That is our challenge.

How can we help to minimize the fundraising gap?

At the moment, we need the skills and knowledge on how to scale projects up. We have been able to empower farmers and breeders which has resulted in the scaling up of production. Now we are looking to scale up both in terms of financing and skill. Hopefully this can be achieved soon.