194 Developers Graduate from Apple Developer Academy at BINUS University

14 January 2020

The second batch from the Apple coding training program made up of 196 students graduated from Apple’s Developer Academy on the 14th January 2020. This initiative, in partnership with BINUS University, seeks to develop Indonesian human resources with world class programming capabilities and this second batch alone has successfully created 36 mobile applications. Located in BSD City, Tangerang, the Apple Developer Academy is playing a key role in the development of Indonesia’s digital economy by focusing on the crucial areas of technical capabilities, design and business to produce graduates with the capacity to play an active role in shaping Indonesia’s digital future.

The graduation ceremony for the 194 students also provided the opportunity for students to present their successful applications to the Minister of Research &Technology and the Head of the National Innovation Research Agency, Bambang Brodjonegoro. Among these applications were Qiroah, Teman Netra, Leastric, Hearo and Canting. The Quiroah is an application designed to support the learning of the Koran through listening to phrases and practicing the pronunciation of Qur'anic verses. Teman Netra, was created to help Indonesian citizens who are visually impaired by providing assistance to read text on letters, books, brochures, food labels, restaurant menus to nominal money values.

Bambang Brodjonegoro commented at the event that he has high hopes for the graduates to join startups or to start their own ventures as local startups in Indonesia still have to heavily rely on experts from abroad. "The essence of this program is not only providing training or enhancing IT and digital focused human resources, but can also create a variety of applications that can be used by Apple and others to answer the needs of the community. Hopefully, these alumni can replace the role foreign workers and become the pioneers in developing new technology" said Bambang.

To date, Apple Developer Academy has branches in BSD City, Surabaya and Batam with the potential for further expansion in the future. The third batch made up of 200 selected students from more than 2000 applicants from various provinces in Indonesia will begin their course in February 2020 for completion in December 2020. This initiative is part of the growing digital ecosystem underway at Green Office Park in BSD City which is being developed as a Digital Hub by Sinar Mas Land and includes complementary projects such as BSD Innovation Lab as well as the headquarters of startups such as Grab Indonesia.