community, identity & science / fiction.

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Whoever has been to Jakarta knows how it is to be stuck in traffic. Epic, hopeless congestions will make you want to tear your hair out, especially if you are trying to get home after a long day and you KNOW your home is – in theory – only a few kilometres away.

Unfortunately, Jakarta does not have a rail-based public transport system like tram, underground or similar. The only other means of getting around slightly faster is… by motorbike. Because bikes can weave though the traffic and thus get to the next traffic light just ahead of the pack.

cc by tb smith

DIY motorbike taxi

Jakartans have known this for a long time, and unsurprisingly, Jakarta’s streets are full of motorbikes;  in fact I believe they are key contributors to the traffic problem, but let’s leave that aside for now.

Motorbikes are pretty affordable, and a small industry has sprung up around the idea of motorbike taxis. Normally, the way this works is that some motorbike-owning emang with not much to do offers his services to whoever happens to walk past. This type of informal, unlicensed transportation service is called “ojek”.

Motorbike taxis clearly have potential, but most of the wealthier Jakartans are reluctant to use this service. Of course, riding a motorbike means being exposed to heat and rain, to smog and dust. It is not very safe and the average ojek driver isn’t necessarily experienced or well trained.

Go-Jek

Smart move of Jakarta based starup Go-Jek to tackle that problem. Of course they can’t away take the heat and dust, but their mission is to make ojek smarter, safer and more convenient by providing a more formalized service. However, instead of putting new drivers and bikes on the street, they choose to work with already existing drivers that are selected by 3 criteria: their experience, their reliability and whether they have a valid drivers’ license. The call-an-ojek hotline now makes it possible to give drives additional rides, leading to less idle time. (App to follow soon, I hope!)

This is what their website looks like. Apart from transporting people, Go-Jek also offers courier services for goods.

So simple, so brilliant! Go-Jek has received quite a lot of attention, also from international media such as this time magazine video and won numerous Indoensian business innovation awards.

On my next visit, I will definitely use this service.

A typical trip from Kemang (South Jakarta) to Menteng (Central Jakarta) would cost me 40,000 IDR, which is about 3.8 Euros. By car, this trip could easily take 60-90 minutes. By bike, perhaps half that time.

I have to say it is rather expensive (a regular taxi ride would not be that much more), but if I get there way faster it may still be worth it. I hope Go-Jek has plans to provide training and more long-time security for drivers under its program as the company grows.

Several interesting startups were presented at Penn Olson’s first Startup Asia Conference last week in Singapore some of wich I would like to review here.

Innova Tech Anti-loss gear

Manufacture of electronics is Singapore’s economic backbone. So no wonder there are some interesting hardware startups springing up here. This one tackles a very common problem – losing stuff.

Innova Tech has come up with a small credit-card sized, bluetooth-based device you can slip into your wallet, handbag, or attach to whichever item it is you’re concerned about losing. If this item gets within several meters out of the range of your cell phone, you will receive a call.

Despite there being one major flaw to this setup (What if its the mobile phone you’re concerned about losing, huh?!?) I guess its a start.

Enough people seem to think so since Innova Tech has managed to get crwodfunded through indiegogo and even overachieved its funding goal before the campaign ended.. I hope they’ll develop this product further, to make it even more useful!

Hardware startup Vibease

Another hardware startup caught my attention – or your I say xxx-ware? This seems to be a bunny-shaped smartphone controlled vibrator. Vibease, as the device is called, comes with a selection of videos and a chat option to put you in the mood.

What do you think ladies?

Collaboration and image tagging tool mocku.ps

This may not be the most unique idea, but I like the way mocku.ps works! I’ve seen and tried conceptboard and conceptshare, both of which are more powerful I guess, but mocku.ps strips it down to the basic function of uploading an image, (while giving an option to present it on a background image, or stage), add comments which can be associated to specific areas of the image, and sharing it conveniently via url. Everything looks nice and is intuitive to use.

The result is then something like this: http://mocku.ps/q0qzc8

Hoping to see this develop! Threaded comments with each note… share option to twitter after commenting, etc.

Indonesian Startups Radar

I’m on my more or less anual visit to Indonesia, where I grew up. Indonesia’s social media and tech scene has been rapidly developing these past few years. Indonesians have been particularly eager to adopt social networking sites and smart phones, making them the third largest group of users on facebook. But twitter is huge, too, with several prominent twitterers well over the 1 million follower mark, and recently a shooting startup called koprol, a location service successfully sold to yahoo.

Beyond the big players, Indonesia with its 238 million people is a large audience and more startups catering specifically to local needs have sprung up in the past.

Startuplokal and Sparxup Award

The platform startuplokal.org acts as aggregator for newcomers, and there’s an annual startup award called Sparxup which honors new ventures in 8 categories each year.

Browsing through the sites, I handpicked some recently launched services which particularly caught my eye.

1. kartumuu

This platform allows members to choose a virtual greeting card, personalize it and send it to someone directly via twitter, facebook or email. Members can also upload their own card designs. The idea may not exactly be new, but the way it seamlessly connects to your friends’ profiles is nice, the branding concept is well executed, and it’s simple to navigate and use.

Culture factor: sending greeting cards/sms/mails  on all kinds of formal and informal purposes like weddings or religious holidays or for fun or flirts I believe is much more common here than in Europe, at least as far as I can tell.

2. Localbrand

A retail site for fashion. Yaawwn. The cool factor about it is that this platform represents small, indonesian made high-end fashion brands by local designers only.

Culture factor: Indonesian fashion designers are struggling to compete against the dominance of foreign luxury brands. That they now join forces to market themselves together is a smart move.

3. Sedapur

Sedapur (roughly translating as “in one kitchen”) is a marketplace for homemade treats. Members can open a shop to promote and sell their homecooking, food lovers can order and eat their favorite munchies.

Culture factor: Cooking and baking and selling these products in the neighborhood is a common form of extra income for women in Indonesia. The number of hyper-local snacks is huge, and  people bring local snacks as gifts from one city to the other. What if you could order your favorite type of Dendeng Balado anytime instead of waiting for aunt XYZ to visit..?

4. bouncity

 bouncity is a check-in-and-get-rewards type of platform. However, bouncity  works only with a few select partners, (which makes it more like groupon, I guess)  say, with some specific outlets of the forzen yogurt chain Sour Sally and a gamification aspect involving actual challenges like solving a quiz or taking a picture of something before you get the reward (like a free desert or an extra topping). The aim is to engage the customers on location in a fun way.

Culture factor: I think this concept could exist anywhere. In fact, does it already exist elsewhere? I think people would go to great lengths just about everywhere to get a freebie. If it involves doing something silly, like singing in a frozen yogurt shop, this could get pretty spectacular and perhaps even a little viral. And teens love to challenge each other to do embarassing things in public, at least we used to.

5. BisTip

With BisTip, travelers can signal they’re willing to transport a 3rd person’s parcel to their destination. travelers can type in their travel route and date, senders can search for specific routes and contact the traveler. In a way, it’s a little bit like Mitfahrgelegenheit.de – except not with co-travelers but stuff.

Culture factor: in a country where the post service is unreliable and expensive, “nitip” (to ask someone to take a parcel along on whichever route) is a widespread practice. Also, I imagine this service is interesting because it allows international routes. Ordering from outside Indonesia is tedious and unreliable, a human transport (only legal stuff of course!) seems like a great idea. How would one ensure only legal stuff is being transported though? I wonder if  smuggling issues could become a serious problem.

6. Jelajah (Alpha)

Jelajah does not yet show much more than this landing page. I’m still mentioning it because I find the idea bold and wonder how they will pull it off. So the idea is to – wait for it – crowdfund your travel. This is a travel community (share trips, find travel partners) but the main idea is to get your trip funded by “making it valuable”, either by offering rewards to your sponsors or acting as a tour guide. Number one sounds interesting. What might that be? Bungee jumping off a bridge in Kalimantan wearing a Gudang Garam Shirt? Or bringing home a bag of sand from Belitung for family and friends? I truly wonder if a kickstarter principle will work to fund trips. The second option seems more achievable: offer trips in which the offeree acts as guide and gets payed for by the other travelers. Extremely individualized, guided trips to remote places could have its charms.