For the Sake of Our Local Ecosystem
He chose to leave his promising career at multinational companies behind, to foster a local ecosystem of application and game development.
Narendra Wicaksono
Narendra Wicaksono once worked at Microsoft and Nokia. However, he chose to leave his promising career at multinational companies behind to make his dream come true, which was to foster an ecosystem of application and game development in Indonesia.
Narendra worked as technical evangelist at Microsoft Indonesia from May 2007 to December 2010. He was tasked with spreading technical knowledge to the public and developing Microsoft’s tech communities. Afterwards, he worked as Southeast Asia business development manager at Nokia until April 2014. His main job was to connect tech developers and the market to support a sustainable software industry.
Through the jobs, Narendra was in touch with many Indonesian developers. He guided them to become players in the global software industry. “When I was working in the two companies, I had the chance to travel around Indonesia and met with many awesome application and game developers. I found success stories. I found sad ones, too,” he said.
He then talked about Solite Studio Madura, which comprised four students of Trunojoyo University in East Java. The four students created a math-themed educational game called Save the Hamster that won first prize in the Microsoft ImagineCup Indonesia in April 2013. Narendra was their mentor.
As the first prize winner, Solite Studio represented Indonesia at the Microsoft Imagine Cup finals in St. Petersburg, Russia, in July 2013. The journey to the finals was relatively smooth. Solite Studio won first prize in the global competition. However, the parents of one Solite Studio team member did not wish for their child to work as an application developer. They wanted him to be a civil servant, instead.
“I went all the way to Surabaya [in East Java] and rode a motorbike to Madura [also in East Java] to meet with his father. I told him that his son has won a global competition and that Save the Hamster had been downloaded by almost 1 million users. I begged him to give his son a chance for at least a year to get the business sustainable,” Narendra said.
He added that this issue was common in Indonesia; many youths working as application developers decided to switch jobs as they were unable to receive their parents’ blessings.
Tens of thousands of members
Narendra knew that many young Indonesians had the potential to be application or game developers. However, the industry’s ecosystem is not supportive of them. He was then moved to develop the nation’s application and game industry ecosystem.
“When I was working for others, I wished to do many things to develop the local application and game industry’s ecosystem, but I was not free to do so,” he said.
He then chose to leave his career at multinational companies. Afterwards, he established a company called Dicoding along with several of his friends on Jan. 5, 2015. He aimed to bridge local developers and market demand.
“Back then, I was 30 years old. My parents have no background in business. I believed that it would be best to start young in making my own way and, luckily, my parents gave me their blessing,” Narendra said.
At first, the Dicoding team comprised only four people; now, the team has 12. They manage three pillars of activities, namely competitions, events and education. Thus far, some 17,900 cross-platform application developers have registered in more than 374 Dicoding activities held in collaboration with developers’ communities, the Indonesian government and the information technology industry between 2015 and 2017.
Dicoding now has more than 71,000 members in 336 cities across Indonesia. Some 632 individuals among them manage tech start-ups that use Dicoding programs to improve the quality of their digital products.
Some 3,600 digital products have been born in 127 Dicoding challenge competitions, including games, mobile applications and web pages. Dicoding products have been downloaded more than 214 million times.
“My team and I strictly checked all digital products. If we find any cheating, we reject the application and block the developer. We wish to properly educate our developers,” Narendra said.
In August 2015, Dicoding launched the Dicoding Academy. Currently, more than 27,500 developers are actively participating in Dicoding activities. Some 2,411 have graduated. To participate in Dicoding Academy, developers need to register and take part in classes online.
In the past year, Narendra and his team have been compiling the MADE curriculum. As a Google authorized training partner, the curriculum was monitored and verified directly by Google. The aim is to ensure that the study materials offered are relevant to industry needs.
Dicoding exclusively publishes MADE printed module. Google Authorized Training writes comprehensive reviews. The model includes several core materials, such as testing, debugging and application UX.
MADE class participants can obtain these printed modules, as well as 35 tutorial videos and 24 quizzes. They must finish all tasks and application prototypes within 90 days. Upon graduation, they obtain Dicoding’s Picodiploma certificates and the opportunity to take part in Google’s international certification exam.
There are several stories about these online training programs. Many participants from outside Java must wait for electricity to come on in their homes and for internet connection to do MADE tasks. The Dicoding team once shelled out almost Rp 200,000 (US$14) to send MADE printed modules to class participants residing in Indonesia’s westernmost areas.
Own pocket
Thus far, Dicoding’s operations are funded by the company’s own revenue – a method called bootstrap. Narendra said that he chose to do this to prove that a tech company using the bootstrap method would be sustainable. “Come on, you need to first understand programming code, and then you make a good product and have a social impact,” he said.
For his team members to work in peace, the company bought them all houses using company funds. “If they use their salary to pay house installments, they will get a headache and eventually, it will impact their work. No matter how much they earn, it does not necessarily mean they can pay for their house,” Narendra said, explaining his policy.
To reduce expenses, his wife helps him manage Dicoding, including in finances and writing press releases. He also gives his team members a lot of free time to be used for other activities. “One of our team members goes out to his [agricultural] field every afternoon after completing his daily tasks at Dicoding,” he said.
His journey with Dicoding was not always smooth. During the past year, he had doubts about the company. He once ran out of money to cover his daily needs. However, the doubts went away once he found local youths with the potential of becoming great application developers. “I am satisfied to see my students become successful and I appreciated this very much,” he said.
