Aulia Faqih, Intel® Software Innovator and Intel® Black Belt Software Developer, is a lecturer at UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta and creator of Dirakit.com. He is focused on growing the Indonesian Internet of Things (IoT) community using the Dirakit platform. Read our interview with Aulia and his associate, Narenda Wicaksono, also an Intel® Software Innovator, to learn more about how they are influencing the developer community.
Tell us about Dirakit.
A: I realized that one of the biggest challenges that Indonesia faces is that we are non-native English speakers and this is quite a barrier to us in the field of technology. In order to overcome this obstacle I developed Dirakit, an IoT community platform for Indonesians. It’s a place for users to explore, learn, share, participate in IoT technology challenges and more in their local language. It is similar to hackster.io, but everything is in the local language. Dirakit is here to help grow the IoT developers, skill levels, and market in Indonesia.
Tell us about Dicoding Academy. How does it relate to Dirakit?
A: Dicoding Academy is an educational site for Indonesian developers and makers. In Indonesia, innovators have a great relationship and help each other whenever we can. One way we are doing that is that I help to create courses for the Dicoding Academy, while other innovators share their projects on Dirakit.com. Narenda can explain more about Dicoding Academy, but really it’s a place for people to learn and then in turn they can share their work on Dirakit and inspire others.
N: Dicoding Academy is an online learning platform where we offer verified courses on the latest technologies, co-created together with IT industry leaders. Dicoding Academy allows Indonesian developers to advance their skillset in order to meet global market needs. We manually review each code submission to ensure our graduates are competent coders who are work-ready both as promising tech entrepreneurs and professional IT specialists.
How have Dirakit and Dicoding Academy influenced the developer community in Indonesia?
A: The Indonesia Creative Economic Agency hosts the BEKRAF Developer Day and BEKRAF Developer Conference events; major software developer events in Indonesia. We partner with them and do speakerships and workshops at these events. These roadshow events are held all over Indonesia including Yogyakarta, Surabaya, Medan, Jakarta, Makassar, Bogor and more. We are able to reach thousands of developers and makers throughout the nation at these events. In the short time since we launched, Dirakit has reached over 1,000 registered makers and 200 projects shared.
How many people participate in Dicoding Academy? Are the courses online only?
N: We have more than 20,000 students enrolled, and 2,000 students have graduated. All of the courses are available online and we also have offline training sessions several times a year in 8-10 cities nationwide. Currently, we have reviewed over 80,000 submissions manually to ensure quality of the learning process and storage for our academy has reached over 100 GB.
What type of courses are available at Dicoding Academy?
N: Currently we have Android and Game Development courses available, including those with Intel technologies such as Game Development with Construct and Intel® XDK, and Android App Development with Intel® XDK. Students have a range of courses available to choose from and receive a certification from the academy upon passing and graduates of our academy are connected with companies that need the skills they have developed.
Is there anything else you would like people to know?
A: Dirakit and Dicoding Academy are here for all Indonesians that are interested in software development. We encourage all makers to visit our websites and attend our events to learn more. We want to help grow and develop the maker community across Indonesia.
Want to learn more about the Intel® Software Innovator Program?
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