Israel-Indonesia Futures – 2022 Challenge

Challenge: Birds-Eye View:

Indonesia is comprised of 17,500 islands spanning 5,000 km (that’s the distance from London to Dubai!). However, 56% of the country’s population of 270 million people lives on the island of Java, home to the country’s capital, Jakarta, where the majority of economic activity is focused.

This has led to significant economic disparity between Java and Indonesia’s other islands, in terms of investment, regional development, educational and vocational training opportunities.

Challenge: Up-Close:

While entrepreneurship in the country has been growing tremendously in the past decade, business development services provided by entrepreneurship support organizations have been able to cater to entrepreneurs only in big cities such as Jakarta, and Bandung.  Entrepreneurs in other cities such as Medan, Palembang, Makassar, Denpasar – not to mention second tier cities – rarely have equal opportunities to training or capacity-building activities and programs.

This is due to several factors:

• Most entrepreneur support organizations in the country are based out of Jakarta and Bandung.
• Most business development services or capacity-building activities are delivered offline. There are some organizations which provide online support services, but these services are not part of their sustainable business models.
• Most entrepreneur support services are delivered in project or cohort-based programs. Consequently, entrepreneurs can access these programs only during certain times of the year, depending on the program organizers’ preferences.

Description:

This challenge calls for a digital solution that will enable social entrepreneurs across the Indonesian archipelago to access capacity-building and business development services – such as incubator/accelerator programs, workshops, seminars, mentorship opportunities, and other resources – no matter where they are operating or when they want to use them – to help them and their ventures grow and thrive.

Our Challenge Partner:

Our Challenge Partner is a leading social innovation accelerator in Jakarta, providing social entrepreneurs with training, connection to capital and consulting services.

A purpose-driven company helping businesses to be more impactful, sustainable, and scalable, it has supported more than 150 social enterprises in Indonesia through incubation and acceleration programs, collaborating with corporates, civil society organizations, and international development agencies from Europe, Singapore, South Korea, and the United States.

Having worked with hundreds of impact-driven entrepreneurs over the past few years, our Challenge Partner now seeks to help more entrepreneurs, especially those operating in cities and towns outside of Jakarta or Bandung, without the constraints of time and location.

Objectives:

Competing teams will be tasked with designing a sustainable digital solution to enable our Challenge Partner – and other entrepreneurship support organizations in Indonesia and internationally – to make their business development services, capacity building activities, incubation/acceleration programs and mentorship opportunities accessible for impact-driven entrepreneurs from anywhere in Indonesia.

The goals are to:

• Create a more level playing field among impact-driven entrepreneurs in Indonesia – wherever they may be.
• Provide impact-driven entrepreneurs with access to mentorship and training opportunities.
• Foster vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystems in Indonesia, especially outside of Java.
• Connect Indonesian entrepreneurs to Israeli and international start-up ecosystems and support systems.
• Encourage an entrepreneurial mind-set among young people so as to create a virtuous cycle for innovation and job creation.
• Create jobs and employment opportunities, responding to the needs of emerging, new and established entrepreneurs. These are entrepreneurs that might not otherwise have access to financial and non-financial services.
• Provide opportunities to small businesses to grow and contribute to community and local economic development

At the end of the program, teams will be required to submit the following:

• A business plan consisting of the above objectives, parameters (provided during the program), and proposed solution (including market needs/opportunities, environmental scan, plan of product features and user interface/user experience, financial model, people/talent requirement, risk mitigation, and a roll out plan).
• A presentation of the solution, which will be presented by the team at the final event.

The final evaluation of each team’s solution will be made by a judging panel, according to specific criteria – including effectiveness, long-term sustainability, cost effectiveness, and potential for scaling up.

The team that the judging panel feels has presented a solution with the most promise will undertake a validation & partnership-building trip to further the initiative and expand their Israel-Indonesia networks. This will entail:

Candidates should be professionals with combined knowledge, experience and expertise in at least one of the following:

• Understanding of the rich diversity and gaps between cities and rural areas in Indonesia. (Indonesians)
• Understanding of Indonesia’s start-up ecosystem. (Indonesians)
• Experience working in/with start-ups/social enterprises or incubators/accelerators. (Indonesians/Israelis)
• Experience developing capacity-building programs for entrepreneurs or under-served/periphery communities. (Indonesians/Israelis)
• Experience developing edtech, HRtech, Future of Work solutions. (Indonesians/Israelis)
• Ability to design and build a digital community of entrepreneurs. (Indonesian/Israeli)
• Tech know-how and experience in creating and maintaining a digital platform. (Indonesian/Israeli)
• Experience in business development skills especially in the digital/tech sector. (Indonesian/Israeli)
• Experience in creating business plans. (Indonesian/Israeli)