The Sun Rises from the East, So Does Hope
This is a story about my new friend in Kupang, Nusa Tenggara Timur, one of fascinating places in Indonesia.
The story begins when I visited Kupang for one mission under Binar Academy and Telkomsel TheNextDev, a program which aims to find potential tech engineers across Indonesia to be taught about product development from the scratch. As a mentor of Binar Academy which based in Jogja, I was so amazed when I set my foot at this place. This is my first time visiting Kupang, and what I knew about it was extremely limited — an amazing multicultural city in Nusa Tenggara Timur, which has beautiful beaches and their well-known traditional hand-woven fabric.
Well, it turns out that Kupang has a lot of young people who show enourmous enthusiasm in technology. On our first day, Binar Academy conducted its admission test at Sotis Hotel Kupang to filter the candidates. Upon my arrival at the admission test, the place was already packed up with more than 180 people who wanted to join Binar Academy class in Kupang. Unfortunately only 30 of them who were allowed to join our class which will run for 30 days. Knowing that this was a rare opportunity, I kinda knew right away why there were a lot of people who wanted to join this class so badly.
Earth as a Hope
Out of all candidates, I was fortunate to meet a girl who failed in the admission test. Yes, it was indeed a fortunate occurrence. I believe that whenever we go out beyond our usual preseverance, it will always lead us to unexpected insights that slip under our current recognition. Her name was Pertiwi — as in earth, as in the land surface on which we live and move about. During our long chit-chat, she passionately showed us a sharp vision about the use of technology to improve her hometown. Her liveliness in asking me questions displayed a great desire to build an impactful startup for the locals. She would like to encourage the youngsters to be bright leaders that hold the future of Kupang. Pertiwi wants to change the mind of the youngsters who think that the only way to meaningful life was to be a public servant. As a law student of Universitas Nusa Cendana, Pertiwi has an idea to make a platform which provides the opportunity to learn about leadership.
She aspires to encourage the young generation to embrace their dream beyond their current mindset. In her notion, Indonesia only needs 1% of its population to be the change makers to evolve the whole country. If this 1% actively contribute as entrepreneurs, she is sure enough that Indonesia would be a developed country. She hopes to join Binar Academy to learn to realise her dream to make a platform that can shape a society who possesses stark leadership skills to be critical and open-minded.
Although she hasn’t made it to join Binar Academy in Kupang yet, she doesn’t surrender that easily. She hopes to join Binar Academy in Jogja to keep learning and make her dream come true. And I know, there are many other Pertiwis in the eastern part of Indonesia who want to boost the potential of their hometown but still don’t have the access to acquire the knowledge. However, visiting Jogja from this part of country is going to require a lot of money and Pertiwi and the others don’t have the resources.
I asked my Binar Academy pals about this and they told me that there is one opportunity to help Pertiwi and the others. Take a look at this campaign, Binar Academy would like to help future female engineers to establish themselves as one by providing the housing, a round-trip ticket, and gadgets to support their device-testing purpose. If you’re supporting Pertiwi and the others, please share this story or you can simply join as donator! You know that the sun rises from the east, so does hope.
