Remote Skills Academy

This project started from the frustration of seeing the gap in digital literacy in Indonesia. Then, during the pandemic working from home, hybrid, and remotely became the new norm. COVID creates problems, from the closing down of businesses, employees sent home/laid off, increasing unemployment and the number of job seekers. We know that technology is the key to adapting to the Future of Work. The Academy educates people in Indonesia with courses that increase digital literacy and open up a whole world of global opportunities. Our courses aim to empower youth, professionals, women, and communities, and enable them to have an advantage and bargaining power in job search and employment opportunities. In 2022 we will reach out to communities in villages and women in Sumbawa to equip them with tech skills. In some areas, we will address basic English and Computer skills, help with job search and career mentoring.

The first problem faced in Indonesia is unemployment and lack of jobs available. The pandemic has resulted in businesses closing down, employees sent home and being laid off. Another problem is lack of digital literacy in Bali and Indonesia in general. The digital literacy gap is obvious between the digital nomads and digital skilled professionals working from Bali for example, and the majority Indonesian population. Covid pandemic has transform the way we work. We noticed that in Indonesia people are not equipped with skills and digital knowledge to adapt to the changes. Problems such as lacking digital literacy and digital literacy gap and not understanding where to reach to upskill themselves are obvious. However we see that the biggest problem is reliance on local opportunities only and limited mindset has made them only learning skills from the past and not future skills. It's not easy for them to get new opportunities to increase their quality of life and the quality of life of their community.

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit (2020a), Indonesia ranks
61st out of 100 countries for its level of education and preparedness to
use the Internet. Indonesia’s position is lower than neighbouring
countries such as Singapore and Malaysia, which rank 22nd and 33rd,
respectively. The low level of digital literacy in Indonesia, especially
in rural areas, limits what Internet users can meaningfully do when
they are online and may exacerbate the digital divide (Purbo, 2017).

Our target population are youth, professionals, university students and graduates, women, community in urban city and villages/ rural areas.  Digital literacy is important because it opens the door to employment opportunities and facilitates the mastery of other essential skills (Karpati, 2011). Digitalization constantly creates and transforms jobs throughout the labour market. Digital literacy skills give our target audience the ability to thrive in this dynamic digital environment. However, the remarkable growth of Internet use in Indonesia has not necessarily corresponded with improved digital literacy. Improving digital literacy is one of five priorities in the government’s plan to accelerate the digital transformation in Indonesia (Cabinet Secretariat of the Republic of Indonesia, 2020). However, there is no solid set of policies or clearly targeted outcomes related to digital literacy (The Economist Intelligence Unit, 2020b). (Source:  https://www.cips-indonesia.org...). At the academy, we understand the needs and demands of the Future of Work through our expertise and 10 years of experience. We answer the demands of digital literacy by providing high-quality courses, cohort-based program, masterclasses, workshops and community initiatives, to Indonesians. Our aim is to reach out to the community by empowering leaders with skills and mindset which in turn can empower their community to upskills themselves and thus create a ripple effect.

We believe that the main problem is about mindset and lack of creativity and self-confidence to acquire the relevant skills, pursue global opportunities and create a meaningful life that would benefit themselves and their community. Reliance on only local opportunities and limited mindset has caused our audience to only learn skills relevant in the past or traditional industries and not future skills. It's not easy for them to get new opportunities to increase their quality of life and the quality of life of their community. We reach out to the community and help impact-driven community leaders to embrace digital transformation and technology to empower their community. It then creates a ripple effect in the community where each leader at least can inspire 100 people around them and indirectly increase the quality of life of the community as a whole.

Aulia Halimatussadiah. She has long track record in startup, technology, community building and education. Check more of her profile on LinkedIn:  

http://www.linkedin.com/in/salsabeela

1. Reaching out to community by helping impact-driven community leaders to embrace digital transformation and technology to empower their community can create profound changes in community fast.

2. Changing of mindset. We teach Indonesian to be confident, proactive, learn to learn new skills and adapt to The Future of Work. The best outcome is for them to get global opportunities and not afraid to pursue it.

3. Our reach cover all areas : urban, rural, youth, mid career professionals, woman, housewives , colege students

4. We have expertise and network in the area of remote working thus can teach variety of skills and tools with good curricula which is relevant to the demands of The Future of Work. 

5. We are the advocate of The Future of Work and have been helping start ups to scale their business globally, helping to manage International teams, teaching digital and remote work skills and tools for over 10 years. We understand that there is transformation on the way work "works" and know the demands needed to adopt to the changes in terms of skill and mindset

Our solution is processed to increase awareness of remote-related skills and jobs in Indonesia. Our courses are mixed of recorded and live-cohort courses taught online and hybrid course taught online and offline. We're using Learning Management Systems (LMS) to deliver our recorded courses. Our recorded online courses has enable us to reach wider audience throughout Indonesia. In learning process we use zoom, google meet tools. Our lessons teach about the use of various digital applications and tools that is relevant to The Future of Work. We teach Digital Marketing, Web Development, Virtual Assistant, Project Management and other topics which all introduce the use of various digital tools and application. It is aimed to make participants familiar and able to use those tools with ease. We also teach various methods to learn new skills online to encourage participants to learn new skills. The use of internet for research, the use of tools, software  and applications is widely used in our courses. To spread awareness on our courses and build community of remote workers, we heavily use Social Media. 

We expect our solution have a great impact on digital literacy problem and  help Indonesian to upskill themselves to adapt to the Future of Work. What we do at our courses is provide skills to participants that are relevant to the future as we understand that the way we work transforms. Those courses such as Digital Marketing, Web Developer, Virtual Assistant, Project Management and other introduces the use of various applications applications and tools. However it is not only skills oriented but through mentoring, coaching and as part of our community our participants develop positive mindset, confidence, creativity and enthusiasm to learn new skills to grab various opportunities in life.  We empower our students to have leadership quality to empower themselves and others. The outcome can be astonishing. There are many stories of life changing experiences from our participants. Many has turn their lives for the better, increase their income significantly, successful career transformations, advance in their career life. Testimonial video from participants : Testimonials RSA

Our Impact goal is empowering communities in Indonesia by reaching out to communities to find good solution to the problem together. We believe that best solution is to empower impact driven community leaders. Successful community leaders will have ripple effect in the community where each leader at least can inspire 100 people around him and indirectly increase quality of life of the community. Thus the impact can be achieved fast. Those community leaders can be professionals and youth  in urban city of Indonesia as well as rural areas. Through our 90-Day Digital Leaders Program - We help impact-driven community leaders to embrace digital transformation and technology to empower their community. As an example we will reach out to rural area of Sumbawa to empower 50 - 100 youth with digital skills. Our approach also include creating changes in mindset, confidence and leadership skills to for participants to lead communities and also transfer knowledge skills. Our program can be replicate through all areas of Indonesia covering cities and rural area. Our program even had reach Internationally to Thailand, demonstrating ability to scale our program reach.

1. Our program has shown amazing growth in the number of classes and participants

2. Our programs has shown transformation in the lives of participants

3. Our program has created positive change of mindset, confidence and eagerness to learn new skills as way of life among participants

4. Our programs has reach wider locations in Indonesia and also Internationally

5. Increase of digital literacy

6. Our participants employment and internships number increase 

7.Our participants experience advance in their career

1. Financial barriers: to expand our reach and grow our initiatives funds are needed

2. Cultural barriers: Indonesian are not familiar with the concept of remote work, it's tools, Future of work, thus are not interested to learn

3. Not all Indonesian are equipped with devices such as laptop, PC, good internet network, internet quota that enables them to learn or participate in the courses. 

4. Unwillingness to learn new, unfamiliar things

5. More Marketing, Communication and PR efforts are needed

1. Reaching out to community

2. Raising Awareness

3. Obtain Funding

4. Bridging

Our core team consist of 8 people Full Time staff ranging from Inventor/ Managing Director, Chief Marketing Officer, Business Development Specialist, Project Managers, Brand and Social Media Manager, Finance (Treasurer) and Administration. We also employ best quality part time teachers, mentors, educators and other staff.

Lavinia our Founder is the advocate of The Future of Work. Having 10 years experience in helping start ups to scale their business globally, manage remote teams, and teach remote work skills to people in Indonesia and Internationally.  Aulia, the CMO of Remote Skills Academy, is the Founder of Girls in Tech a non-profit in Indonesia that empower girls to learn technology. Agnes has International expertise in Business Development with experience working in various global companies in various countries . Naomi, Chelsie and Raymond are managers with expertise to execute projects. Sukma is experienced talented and professional Administration staff. Syenny is our dedicated Finance/ Treasurer. We also hire numerous part time experienced experts with  as teachers, coaches, mentors that deliver high quality lessons. Our courses has generated high ratings and viewed as creating life changing impact to the participants. Many participants has reported to experience life changing transformation in their lives.

Our vision and philosophy have enabled us to develop unique frameworks that we’ve used to incubate dozens of successful businesses, build powerful remote teams and help more than 30 of our partner companies expand. We believe diversity, equity, and inclusion matter because they help build a fair society that allows all people to get equal opportunities. Our staff come from diverse background, nationality, age, gender, race, religion, socioeconomic and marital status. At our organization we aims to ensure the fair treatment, access, equality of opportunity and advancement for everyone. We build a culture where everyone feels welcome by actively inviting every person or every group to contribute and participate. One of example of equal opportunity and advancement is we invite all of our staff who are interested to an opportunity to become carrier coach. Everyone who has passion are welcome to pursue this opportunity. There are many more examples. We have company office meetings that all participants has equal opportunity to express their ideas, contribute and participate.

1. Universities

2. Foreign Representatives

3. Entrepreneurs

4. Non Profit Organizations

5. Social Enterprises

1. Segments: Community, Community Leaders, Youth, Mid Life Professionals, Women, University Students and Fresh Graduates, Urban Community, Rural Community.

2. Value Preposition: Our approach is unique, the skills we are teaching are not widely taught in Indonesia. In addition our students not only getting new skills but also mentoring, coaching, coworking with Q&A sessions, help with job employment & internships and also access to community. By doing so we create impact to increase digital literacy and positive mindset to Indonesian. 

3. Impact Measures: Our impact can be measured through the lives we are changing, positive mindset, confidence and spirit of learning of our  participants. Another impact measurement is carrier opportunities and advancement that our students gets. The increase of participants, demands of our courses and location reach  can be also measure of our impact.

4. Surplus: Our profits are reinvested to further expand our programs and courses, creating more impact and widen our reach.

We are applying for the challenge to get grant to fund  our initiative to further expand our reach and growth.

Access to a network of resource partners

A peer-to-peer network to build a community of practice with dedicated spaces to convene throughout the duration of the support program

We seek Financial support in form of grant, network and partnership.