Amartha Fellowship Bootcamp Builds Participatory and Reflective Leadership
Amid ongoing social and economic changes, academically accomplished students who can understand issues in their entirety and propose contextual solutions are needed. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), through its Future of Education and Skills 2030 initiative, emphasises the importance of strengthening student agency—the ability of learners to take initiative and be responsible for creating value for society.
In response to this need, Amartha.org has launched the Amartha Fellowship Bootcamp as part of the Beasiswa Amartha Cendekia programme. The initiative aims to equip university students in STEAM fields with leadership skills and a mindset to understand and actively participate in creating changes that impact their communities.
Aria Widyanto, Chairman of amartha.org, said: ‘Through amartha.org and the Beasiswa Amartha Cendekia programme, we want to equip students not only to excel academically but also to grow as leaders in their communities and to solve problems in their surroundings. We believe that learning on campus becomes meaningful when it is directly connected to real-world problems in society. Therefore, this bootcamp is designed as both a space for reflection and a space for action, so that they have the courage and capacity to deliver real and sustainable impact.’
Amartha Fellowship Bootcamp, attended by 60 scholarship recipients and lasting four days, is the culmination of mentoring and coaching the fellows have undergone over the past year. The bootcamp is designed with a participatory and reflective leadership approach, encouraging participants to develop systemic thinking and empathetic abilities to understand the interconnections of various social issues comprehensively.
In the programme, participants are introduced to mindfulness practices as a foundation for building resilient, mindful, and impact-oriented leadership. The bootcamp also features business leaders and professionals from various sectors who share experiences and inspiration with the fellows.
At the end, participants will be challenged to design prototypes for social solutions to the issues they encounter. Through hands-on learning in the community, the fellows are invited to understand real-world challenges on the ground and translate them into social initiatives relevant to community needs. The prototypes developed in groups will receive initial funding from Amartha to support early-stage implementation.
Zian Nora Berliana, a recipient of the Amartha STEAM Fellowship Batch 3, said the bootcamp helped her understand interpersonal skills as a way to create solutions. ‘This bootcamp is exciting and opened my perspective on leadership. The most memorable for me were the sessions on how to speak and listen deeply. Here I learned that a leader is someone who can listen and understand in full so that the solutions offered are more relevant and humane.’
Beyond educational funding and the Amartha Fellowship Bootcamp, Beasiswa Amartha Cendekia provides support such as personal development programmes, mentoring with mentors from the professional community, and funding for student social projects. By 2025, the Beasiswa Amartha programme has disbursed educational funds totalling Rp10 billion to more than 800 students in Indonesia through three scholarship schemes: Beasiswa Amartha Cendekia, Amartha STEAM Fellowship and Amartha Frontier Fellowship.
The Beasiswa Amartha Cendekia programme will reopen application for Indonesia’s youth who want to develop leadership capacity, social innovation, and new skills. Further information can be accessed via the official channels. (H-2)
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