BaliCamp gears up to become Indonesia's Silicon Valley<\/p>\n
By Zatni Arbi<\/p>\n
BATURITI, Bali (JP): I just spent two very interesting days in
\nBali. The second day would perhaps be interesting only to me: I
\nspent the whole day in the Bedugul area, which I had visited more
\nthan 20 years ago and had been intensely dreaming of revisiting.<\/p>\n
Of course, as you can understand, it was quite a
\ndisappointment for me to see so many hotels and resorts sprouting
\nwildly in that area. It was also a disappointment to find how
\nnoisy this place had become -- with all the motorcycles on the
\nroad and the jet skis on the water. Well, what can I say? These
\nare the changes that we, unfortunately, have come to label as
\n\"progress\".<\/p>\n
However, what brought me in the first place to Baturiti, some
\n20 minutes before Bedugul, was what I would consider real
\nprogress. I was invited to witness the official opening of
\nBaliCamp, a software development center owned by PT Sigma Karya
\nSempurna, a Sigma Cipta Caraka company. It is a high-tech campus
\nwhere programmers work on various different projects while
\nenjoying the natural beauty of Pacung Valley.<\/p>\n
Even before it was officially launched, BaliCamp was already
\nserving 10 companies in North America and Europe.<\/p>\n
\"So far, we have received US$2 million in revenue from these
\nprojects,\" said Otto Toto Sugiri, the visionary engine that has
\nbeen driving the progress of Sigma Cipta Caraka and all the
\ncompanies in the group.<\/p>\n
Software<\/p>\n
Indeed, Toto is known among the Indonesian IT community for
\nhis ideas, most of which are ahead of their time. Selling
\nsoftware and services to the global market from the beautiful
\nisland of Bali is one of them.<\/p>\n
\"When the crisis hit us, we thought that there was still
\nsomething that we could do, and that was to export software,\" he
\nsaid. He mulled over the idea, talked it over with prospective
\npartners and then set out to find the best location for the
\ncampus. He ended up in Baturiti, Pacung, right in the center of
\nthe island.<\/p>\n
When the colorful fireworks went off in the sky with a lot of
\nbangs that Saturday evening, less than half of the total project
\nwas completed. Yet there had already been about 95 programmers
\npounding on the keyboards in the cozy rooms -- which each of them
\nprobably look like a family living room to you -- in the well-
\nequipped complex.<\/p>\n
\"Creativity is the essence of software development,\" Toto
\nreasoned, \"Our developers need a work environment that can
\nstimulate their creativity.\"<\/p>\n
That is, undoubtedly, why Sigma's own workplace in Menara Dea,
\nMega Kuningan, Jakarta, is also designed in a very similar way.
\nYou'll not find any cubicle in the coffee shop-like workplace.<\/p>\n
What is perhaps another extraordinary thing about this center
\nis that Sigma has been building the campus without any bank
\nfinancing.<\/p>\n
\"Our shareholders don't believe in taking out loans,\" Toto
\ntold me when I first met him a couple of months ago. This is
\nwhere the Sigma Group seems to be really conservative -- for a
\ncommendable reason given the fact that almost all other startups
\nwould think first of applying for bank loans. The US$3 million
\ninvestment that has been made in BaliCamp so far has come from
\nthe group's own equity.<\/p>\n
In the \"work modules\" at the camp, programmers, developers and
\nothers provide various services to their clients, including
\nintegration, localization, testing and quality assurance,
\nmigration, software and application development and project
\nmanagement. A direct satellite uplink to Hawaii provides a large
\nconduit to the Internet for all the bits and bytes they produce.<\/p>\n
Partners<\/p>\n
Those who were present at the opening ceremony, which was
\npreceded by a Balinese performance, would find it hard to believe
\nthat they saw top-level executives from Microsoft, IBM and Oracle
\nsitting next to each other. These three are real competitors --
\nalways trying to grab each other's customers. The fact that
\nBaliCamp was able to build partnerships with the three of them is
\nperhaps an indication of how much confidence these major software
\nvendors have in this company.<\/p>\n
What about human resources? As if to provide yet further
\ntestimony in support of my conviction that Indonesians are just
\nas capable as other nationals when it comes to software
\ndevelopment, Sutjahyo Budiman, BaliCamp marketing director, told
\nme that they had had no problem recruiting good talent.<\/p>\n
\"Every Thursday, we invite those who are interested in joining
\nus to come to BaliCamp and take our job test. On average, we have
\n10 people coming each week, although our hiring rate is still
\naround 10 to 15 people a month. We also visit the computer
\nschools at Indonesia's leading universities regularly to find
\nmore talent,\" added Sutjahyo.<\/p>\n
By the end of 2001, BaliCamp expects to have between 400 and
\n500 people working at the center -- one third of them
\nprogrammers.<\/p>\n
\"In addition to a comfortable work environment in a naturally
\nbeautiful surrounding, another attraction is the way remuneration
\nis determined. BaliCamp is a result-oriented environment, so how
\nmuch one earns depends on what he delivers,\" explained Sutjahyo,
\nwho was the second person to join BaliCamp.<\/p>\n
Local opportunities<\/p>\n
Needless to say, BaliCamp also creates new opportunities to
\nthe local Balinese people living around the complex. The driver
\nof the minibus that took me to Bedugul the next morning, for
\nexample, told me that four BaliCamp programmers were boarding at
\nhis home.<\/p>\n
But that is not all. \"We have also been introducing the
\ncomputer to the local community,\" said Sutjahyo. \"About 10 to 20
\nvillage children as well as adults come to BaliCamp each evening,
\nand we teach them how to use a computer and the Internet.\"<\/p>\n
What are their most significant products so far? One of them
\nwill be a product very important to us who use Microsoft Office
\nto prepare documents in Indonesian. \"Microsoft has asked us to
\ndevelop an Indonesian spell-checker for MS Office,\" Sutjahyo told
\nme in a one-on-one interview after the ceremony.<\/p>\n
Two Bahasa Indonesia professors from University of Indonesia's
\nFaculty of Letters have been working closely with the company on
\nthis application. \"The beta version is already completed, and we
\nare hoping to release Version 1.0 soon.\"<\/p>\n
BaliCamp may not have been the first software development
\ncenter that has capitalized on what Bali has to offer. A couple
\nof years earlier I also had the privilege of visiting PT Mitrais,
\na software development center in Kuta owned by PT Mincom
\nIndonesia. Bali is the most preferred place for these companies
\nbecause of the easy access through its international airport, a
\nrelatively stable and safe environment and a local community
\naccustomed to having foreigners among them.<\/p>\n
However, who was the first to set up a software development
\ncenter in Bali is not an issue, since what we all would like to
\nsee is more and more similar initiatives like BaliCamp and
\nMitrais emerging in this country. We have a local pool of talent,
\nand IT is a dynamic and constantly changing industry with
\nabundant opportunities.<\/p>\n
Needless to say, all of these initiatives will need government
\nsupport in the forms of advanced, reliable and cost-efficient IT
\ninfrastructure, a totally overhauled education system and a far
\nmore conducive environment.<\/p>\n
Until then, let us all wish the best to those who brought
\nBaliCamp into being. Their work has just begun.
\n(zatni@cbn.net.id)<\/p>",
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