Young & Inspirational People Who Are Successfully Establishing a Startup

There have been numerous people that make Indonesia prominent in the international arena. Not just a matter of medals and awards, but also from their idea, Indonesia began to be taken into account in the startup world. In recent years, the startup world has been indeed promising.

It becomes an excellent place to start a business or work. By building and working in start-up companies, it certainly inspires many other young people to do the same. Among those who have made the way to the startup world, some of them start the business at a young age.

Achmad Zaky is one of them. Zaky is the founder of Bukalapak. Before establishing Bukalapak, Zaky had known the world of technology since elementary school. He even had the opportunity to represent his school in the National Science Olympiad (OSN) in the computer field and win it.

In 2004, he continued his studies in the Department of Informatics, Bandung Institute of Technology and graduated cum laude. He also won a scholarship to study at Oregon State University from the United States government in 2008 and represented ITB at the 2009 Harvard National Model United Nations.

Bukalapak itself is an Indonesian e-commerce company based on the C2C marketplace that focuses on empowering Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). As a founder of this e-commerce startup, he has assets of around USD 100 million. He even received a Satyalancana Wira Karya Award of Honor.

The Pioneer of Gojek and Hijup.com

Alamanda Shantika is another young and inspirational person who has been successful in developing a startup in Indonesia. A career in technology is nothing new for her. Before joining Go-Jek as Vice President of Product, Ala had worked at several companies like Berrybenka and Kartuku.

Besides, Ala has also been a Chief Activist at FemaleDev, Program and Curriculum Advisor at the 1000 National Digital Startup Movement, as well as Advisors in several companies and banks such as Oktagon, Pijar Imaji, Studio Name, and CIMB Niaga.

Ala was the initial team that pioneered GoJek from scratch with its founder, Nadiem Makarim. She is like the motor and the brain behind the GoJek application system. Moreover, there is also Diajeng Lestari. She is the one behind Hijup.com, popular hijab e-commerce from Indonesia.

She founded Hijup.com in 2011. Then, it became the first e-commerce in Indonesia to provide special Islamic Muslim clothes. She created a site about Muslim fashion from well-known brands. Currently, Hijup.com has expanded throughout the world. Recently, it expanded to London.

The Founder of WeCare.id and Kitabisa.com

Not only as a celebrity but Mesty Ariotedjo is also known as a health practitioner. She even developed WeCare.id. Since 2015, Mesty has established the organization which is now a site that was built specifically to raise funds for patients in remote areas or who need access to health care.

Because of his instincts and initiatives through WeCare.id, Mesty entered the Forbes ’30 Under 30 ‘2016 list. Next, there is Muhammad Alfatih Timur. He is a former Indonesia University student who established a crowd-funding website called Kitabisa.com. This website was founded in 2013.

This social-economic site succeeded in facilitating more than 31,846 social fundraisings, with 2,801,425 people joining, and more than IDR 815 billion donations collected. Social fundraising is usually targeted for donations such as the construction of worship houses, medical costs, scholarships, and so on.

The social project is usually initiated by individuals, communities, foundations to charity institutions that collect online donations ranging from 20 thousand to millions of rupiah. He also entered the ‘Forbes 30 under 30 Asia 2016’ list and was once a participant in the Project Catalyst business training in Seattle, Washington.