JAKARTA- For 3 years, Bangkit has produced more than 5,000 graduates who are ready to contribute to the acceleration of Indonesia's digital transformation.
Today (6/9) Bangkit, a career readiness program presented by Grow with Google in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia (Kemdikbudristek RI), successfully graduated 2,517 students from 226 campuses throughout Indonesia. Initially, after passing a rigorous selection from 63,000 applicants, they were accepted as Bangkit participants. Then they managed to complete 900 hours of Bangkit learning in the even semester of the 2021/2022 school year. The results of their studies are reflected in 18,000 specializations / micro-credentials in the fields of Machine Learning, Mobile Development, or Cloud Computing that the participants have achieved.
Overall, “Today we recorded an important history in the journey of the Merdeka Belajar campaign where more than 3,000 students from hundreds of universities in Indonesia became independent students through the Kampus Merdeka program. Nine hundred (900) hours that students have been given to take part in industry-based training in technology, coupled with soft skills, I guarantee it will not be meaningless," said Nadiem Anwar Makarim, Minister of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology.
“We are very proud of the enthusiasm and support from Universities throughout Indonesia which is reflected in the number of registrants this year. Over the three years of the program, it has attracted nearly 100,000 applicants, trained IT competencies for more than 6,400 participants, and raised more than 5,000 graduates, of whom 27% are women,” said Putri Alam, Director of Government Relations & Public Policy at Google Indonesia.
An increase of 60% from last year, Bangkit 2022 is in demand by 63,000 students from 32 provinces in Indonesia. Then, through the ability selection and administrative files, as many as 3,100 students and the best students were accepted as participants. The majority or 67% of Bangkit's participants this year came from small and medium-sized cities.
From February until July 2022, these participants are actively learning 3 main skills online. First, IT competencies consist of Machine Learning, Mobile Development, or Cloud Computing. All of this learning prepares students to be able to follow and pass the global certification from Google. Second, soft skills teach students about critical thinking, professional communication, time management, adaptability, job interviews, and other essential skills to start a job or startup. Third, the English language prepares students to be able to speak English in a professional context. All are provided free of charge with full financial support from Google and Kemdikbudristek.
Bangkit's success in producing high-caliber digital talent is credited to the support of Bangkit's main partners, namely GoTo, Traveloka, and Dikti. Bangkit has always been considered the gold standard for Kampus Merdeka programs. "We appreciate the support of founding partners, university partners, and also to all contributors from the public and private sectors who have helped the participants' learning progress," said Putri.
Bangkit's various achievements this year are due to the dedication of more than 400 contributors from universities and, in particular, the industry. They shape the participants into digital talents who are ready to work. These contributors take on the roles of instructors as classroom teachers, guest speakers, mentors, and judges. Industry experts who are engineers and employees from Google, GoTo, and Traveloka (Bangkit's founding partners) accounted for 25% of Bangkit's total contributors.
Not only that, as many as 132 of Bangkit's best alumni also play an active role as facilitators who guide students in learning activities.
It is not enough to solely produce participants who excel in achievement. Bangkit also encourages participants to create a real impact on their surroundings. Therefore, Bangkit always comes with a flagship final project entitled "Capstone Project." In the past years, Bangkit has focused on challenging participants to innovate in creating product solutions for problems in the public domain, such as the environment, health, economic resilience, etc., according to the theme chosen by the participants. We call the project “Product-Based Capstone Product.”
This year, more than 400 teams competed in the Product-Based Capstone Project and the best of 15 received industry mentors and incubation funds of 140 million from Google and the Directorate of Research Technology and Community Service (DRTPM) of the Directorate General of Higher Education, Research and Technology (Ditjen Diktiristek).
Now, different from last year, Bangkit comes with one additional new final project, namely the “Company-Based Capstone Project” which sharpens participants to answer real challenges from the industry. This year, 43 teams completed 16 projects from our partners, namely Talentlytica, Indosat Ooredoo Hutchinson, PukulEnam, Dicoding, Traveloka, and Kitabisa. As a result, from these 6 companies, we selected 16 winning teams, including the best one from each company. Due to their good performance during Capstone, as many as 16% of the participants received job offers from our partners.
“Tokopedia believes that it is the best talents who will produce the best innovations that can make people's lives easier and collaborative efforts are needed to produce as many leading digital talents as possible. So, Tokopedia, through the Tokopedia Academy, fully supports the Bangkit program and is proud to see the achievements and works of thousands of participants. We hope that Bangkit graduates can make a real positive contribution to the wider community," said Leny Suwardi, SVP of the Data Protection and Privacy Office at Tokopedia. Tokopedia is one of Bangkit's founding partners.
Furthermore, Bangkit wants to widen the opportunities for students to innovate and create solutions, this program is also dedicated to bridging digital talents within the framework of the working environment through the presence of the virtual job fair "Grow with Google."
“Bangkit's vision is to provide structured and high-quality training to produce high-caliber graduates for world-class companies and startups. For this reason, we are very proud that this year we are still able to hold the Grow with Google virtual job fair that is currently still running and is attended by more than 70 companies. They are very excited to widen the opportunities for Bangkit graduates to work in their companies. The number of hiring partners has jumped 46% from last year," said Putri.
Reflecting on the success, Bangkit hopes to provide more learning opportunities for students in Indonesia next year. The number of participants at Bangkit is believed to contribute to the acceleration of the growth of digital talent in the country which also encourages the acceleration of digital transformation in various sectors.
Rigorous Selection
In addition, Acting Officer of The Director of Learning and Student Affairs, Sri Gunani Partiwi added, that the Bangkit program had a significant impact on nation building and the large number of students who enrolled in the program displayed student interest in the Bangkit program in addition to a fairly rigorous selection, from 23,000 applicants, only 2,500 students selected.
“Providing a significant impact by various partners and providing a multiplier effect in various ways. The impact of national development, especially our human resources. This is a positive matter because registrants show interest, and the interest reflects the passion inside and is relatively rigorous, from 23,000 selected, only 2500, “said Sri Gunani.
Sri Gunani also explained that the internet played an important role in work during the era of society 4.0 and digitalization became a new opportunity for students.
“The challenges we face, such as society 4.0, cannot be avoided from digitalization where the internet is very supportive in our work and IT gets new opportunities for students in this era. Today’s IT is an opportunity to get new opportunities, and new jobs. Bangkit in this case provides an interesting and challenging alternative to follow,” Sri Gunani explained.
Bangkit as a program not only teaches hard skills but also teaches soft skills that have made Bangkit students gain experiences that are memorable and useful in the future.
One of Bangkit's participating students, Nauval Muhammad Firdaus, who is Bangkit’s best graduate said, “We have got not only hard skills, soft skills, time management, and English language training. It's all-encompassing, amazing."
“Besides the soft skills mentioned above, there is also teamwork, for example, for the Capstone Project, we did a project that is carried out as a team. So, we got to know each other so that we were able to target the same goals and can achieve our goals together. Moreover, everyone on the team has different perspectives, so we tried to harmonize our views together with discussion and how we also managed our time to keep achieving our goals,” added Najma, a Bangkit graduate who is the team leader of Teman Disabilities (TeDi).
Sri Gunani expected the graduates of Bangkit as a proverb that if you want to fight, one more weapon and you will get one strength. In line with that, Putri Alam said that the Bangkit graduates who had been declared successful were only the first step to managing a future that is already bright and would be brighter for students who had completed the Bangkit program.