Kedaireka Polatform Provides Funding and Training to 14 Bangkit 2021 Incubation Projects

The Bangkit 2021 career development program officially announced 15 selected teams offering the best ideas. The 15 teams will receive $5,000 funding from Google or Rp71 million each to support product development to market in the fields of health to the environment.

Bangkit is a career development program initiated by Google with the Ministry of Education and Culture, Gojek, Tokopedia, and Traveloka. In the first batch of the Kampus Merdeka, the Bangkit 2021 program has graduated 2,250 participants.

Google Indonesia's Product Marketing Manager, Dora Songco said to DailySocial that all participants were required to work on a group final project with one of the strategic topics from the National Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMN) and the National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence.

Furthermore, as many as 483 teams had to complete a final project from the specified theme involving three Bangkit curricula, machine learning, cloud computing, and Android mobile development. Dora said that the final project was designed to explore various problems in Indonesia, from general themes of education, economic defense, health services, to specifically discussing waste management.

"The selected participants have gone through the selection results by a panel of expert judges from academia, technology, and business. Currently, 15 teams are ready to realize three-month achievements and implement projects as planned. Funding support can later help turn the project into a sustainable business initiative," Dora said.

Although it has not been officially announced, his team plans to continue the second batch program next year with a similar activity structure, in which there are three learning paths that are the same and continue to run as part of the Merdeka Campus.

"We have received feedback from various parties regarding Bangkit, and we have been working to improve this program over the past few months. Soon, the next program will be officially announced at the Google for Indonesia event. With more information and recommendations about the Bangkit program and Merdeka Campus,  next year this program will target around 3,000 students," he said.

Kedaireka channels matching fund

In additional, this program selected other participants to receive additional funding or matching funds of Rp855,712,788 from Kedaireka. As a result, 14 incubation projects were selected to receive matching funds, including Adil, Artesia, Baca, Bacara, Buangin, Citizen, Jagawana, Naratik, Next Parking, Obuce, Phoodto, Q-Hope, Samapta, and Usahaq.

In genera note, Kedaireka is the official platform launched by the Directorate General of Higher Education, Research, and Technology in 2020. Through this platform, the government seeks to open up opportunities for synergy between universities and industrial commercialization. As for realizing this collaboration, 14 selected projects will be fostered by the Incubation and Entrepreneurship Lab at 12 Mitra Bangkit Campuses.

Kedaireka Platform / Ditjen DIktiristek

Kedairek'sa Matching Fund Coordinator, Endang Taryono said this funding could help participants to realize their incubation projects into finished products that are ready to compete in the market and open up sustainable business opportunities.

"We hope that matching funds can have a big impact on the Main Performance Indicators (KPI) of universities and solutions for the industrial sector to be more productive and advanced," Endang said in his official statement.

Some of the selected projects are the OBUCE telenutrition platform and the AI-based application Naratik. OBUCE was developed by eight students from Bogor Agricultural University, Jember University, and Brawijaya University. Meanwhile, Naratik was built by students from Dian Nuswantoro University, Diponegoro University, and the Telkom Purwokerto Institute of Technology.

OBUCE representative said that his team will develop more features, such as object detection of food, nutritional status assistant, to consulting with nutritionists. This funding is also planned to be used to obtain patent rights and realize finished products and launch them to the market.

Meanwhile, Naratik was developed to help classify the authenticity of batik and its motifs through AI technology. This application also provides special buying and selling features for batik by cooperating with MSME partners and home industries.

–Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian