Hackathon Titian Digital

A hackathon for students to learn and use smart affordable feature phones to make applications that facilitate online learning.

For most students in Indonesia, they would minimally need a smartphone to learn online. However, not everyone is able to afford or have access to smartphones and devices all the time; many families often share devices among each other. This leaves them out of learning opportunities, and beyond this, the global digital movement.

We believe that KaiOS smart feature phones are the gateway to equitable classrooms by bridging the digital gap. These low-cost mobile devices (starting from USD23) are internet-enabled and pre-loaded with popular digital platforms and services that are now used to facilitate learning. We aim to introduce these devices through a hackathon where students would learn how to use these devices and make beneficial applications through it.

By being introduced to it through hackathons, students who would otherwise fall through the digital gap would be able to gain access to the internet and the boundless knowledge it stores, all at a pocket-friendly price. Freely accessing the internet for online lessons and virtual materials will finally be reality – ultimately, the digital divide will start to close.

In Indonesia, over 530,000 schools have closed amid the coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19), affecting 68 million students from pre-primary through tertiary levels.

The situation has given rise to 'Kulwap', short for 'Kuliah Whatsapp' meaning 'Whatsapp classroom: teachers record themselves teaching and share the videos to their classes on a Whatsapp chat group. The students would then be able to interact with the teacher on the platform. While this has been helpful for most students, many households cannot afford multiple devices or good internet, resorting to sharing a single device amongst themselves. This leads to students missing out on classes due to household members’ conflicting class and work schedules, and therefore leaving them behind in their education.

Being unable to be on par with other students who have better access to online learning tools has considerable impact not just in the immediate future but also in the long run: Outside of education, these students would not have as much opportunity to keep up with the global digital movement. Since there is a wealth of information available on the internet that allows one to upskill themselves, the cost of not being digitally literate is very high.

Enter the KaiOS device, which is fully equipped with widely-used digital services at an affordable price. We believe that by bringing awareness about this device to students, they would finally have better access to the online learning experience and have the freedom to explore the knowledge that the internet has to offer.

This solution is to ultimately serve underprivileged tertiary-level Indonesian students who do not get to participate with their peers in the digital learning environment due to lack of device and internet access. 

We hope to empower them to improve their digital literacy and tech skills through this hackathon, regardless of their their socio-economic background.

In Indonesia, most innovation programs occur in cities in Java where the capital, Jakarta is. However, there is also disparity in the digital learning experiences of students across the country. Moreover, not everyone has digital access; mostly because of inability to afford smartphones, a crucial component of digital learning amid the pandemic.

Our solution of a hackathon centred around the KaiOS device in lower-tier cities not only offers accessibility to the internet through a low-cost alternative to smartphones, but also the knowledge and skills to build digital competency.

Farah Sanwari

There has never been an innovation program that specifically focuses on developing with KaiOS devices. Most innovation programs involve creating applications only for Android or iOS devices. 

As price is often a potent barrier for those who are digitally uninitiated, KaiOS devices have the potential to allow more people to step into the digital space while costing as low as USD $23. This price point is largely affordable for families who have students who need access to the digital learning sphere.

KaiOS is the second most popular mobile operating system after Android in India. KaiOS devices look like feature phones with physical buttons and a non-touch screen, but packs in internet as well as wifi capabilities. Users can download applications through the KaisOS store and even make their own applications for this phone. It is much cheaper than regular smartphones, costing around USD$23.

We will be measuring the success and impact of the program with several metrics:

1. Number of participants involved in the program.
2. Number of schools willing to run the event again.
3. Number of schools willing to run the event by themselves given proper training.
4. Number of participants willing to assist in facilitate the following year's program.

Our overall impact is to ensure that the digital gap among youths to be significantly reduced. In our first year, we hope to be able iterate the program enough to be able to refine and scale the solution to other schools. The student and facilitators' feedback would be helpful in this aspect. We hope to run it in at least 6 schools. 

By the 3rd year, we would like to see the solution scaled across Indonesia with the partnership of the local government, sponsoring private companies, and volunteer bodies from local universities. The number of students impacted would then be significantly scaled.

In 5 years, we hope that, not only will the youths who have been involved in our initiative be active digital citizens with access to the internet, but also productive ones who know how to create content and applications that would aid others out there. We think that with the skills that they learn through our program, they would be empowered to learn more digital skills that would eventually give them better employability prospects. 

Another barrier we think we may face is the lack of publicity to cover these events. With better publicity and outreach, we would get a more positive response to sustain the program.

SpudnikLab started as a social enterprise in 2020 under the Potato Production company to address the digital divide for marginalised communities through frugal innovation. The idea to provide products and services to such beneficiaries has long been conceived by our founder, Saad Chinoy. The digital divide has been a pervasive problem in society, and as someone who had been working in the technology space for over 2 decades, he wanted to address the burgeoning issue. 

The pandemic exacerbated the digital divide and surfaced the underlying inequality in society. Amidst the pandemic, many Singaporean children, mostly from low-income households, faced difficulty in doing home-based learning. Saad volunteered with Engineering Good to refurbish and redistribute laptops across Singapore. While the solution is applicable in a country like Singapore, such a solution may not work for a large country like Indonesia, and cheaper, more accessible devices would be needed to be distributed to students. This led us to conceive such a solution of running innovation programs using the KaiOS devices.

SpudnikLab is a wholly owned subsidiary of Potato Productions. We're a for-profit entity with a Social Enterprise mission bridging digital divides through digital education and frugal innovation.

There are 4 full time staff and 1 part time staff. We work with a pool of freelance writers and voice talent. Hiring for 2 person in-house tech team while working collaboratively with a tech development partner.

1. Saad Chinoy
With 20+ years of experience in the tech sector, Saad is best positioned to bring in technical expertise into the project. He has experience mainly in tech for Digital Storytelling and ePublishing. As a globally-networked Maker and Innovator, Saad will be bringing in technical partners into this project. Saad is also a known tech volunteer for social impact projects in Singapore.

2. Farah Sanwari
Farah has 8 years of experience as a social innovation leader and an innovation-for-good facilitator. She has run over 20 hackathons with the most recent one being a virtual event for 400 participants across 5 countries. She is product design-trained with a Masters in Tri Sector Collaboration. She's ASEAN-networked in youth changemaker sector, with experience opening an office in Indonesia. 

Farah is the co-founder of Repair Kopitiam, a repair movement in Singapore that was conceived in 2014. Repair Kopitiam is a volunteer-run program that invites Singaporeans to repair their items (appliances, clothes, furniture etc.) every last Sunday of the month at various locations across Singapore. Volunteers learn how to repair items and eventually guide attendees at the event to repair their items. 

She secured partnerships with various government agencies such as the National Environment Agency, the SouthWest Community Development Council, People's Association and more in order to make the event run consistently at neighbourhoods in Singapore. A year in, she secured partnership with another district to open up another venue for the Repair Kopitiam event.

As the community manager, she also grew the volunteer pool to 200 people in slightly over a year, and guided in the development of a repair curriculum. 

PotatoProductions and their professional network of companies and partnerships.
Engineering Good, in support of the charity's digital inclusion and frugal innovation efforts in response to the Covid-19 Pandemic.

We would like to seek funding for a more scaled solution. Indonesia is a large country and we hope to run the Hackathon Titian Digital in multiple cities, particularly in the lower-tier cities like Medan and Balikpapan. Outside of Java, there is a lack of digital innovation programs tailored to citizens' digital needs. We hope that by providing this solution in multiple cities, it would spark the initiative for more digital innovation activities across the country.

We also hope to get connected to other like-minded innovators on this platform. We find that their work is amazing and we would like to find opportunities to work with them.