Former Google Executive Denies Signing Deal with Ministry of Education Before Chromebook Procurement

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - Former Google executive and ex-Chair of the Chromebook Development Team, Caesar Sengupta, has denied allegations of an agreement to purchase large numbers of Chromebooks prior to the procurement process at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology (Kemendikbud).

Sengupta made this statement while serving as a character witness for Nadiem in the trial concerning the alleged corruption in the Chromebook laptop procurement.

“There was never any such agreement, and I completely disagree with that accusation,” said Sengupta, who appeared via video link at the Jakarta Corruption Court on Monday (20/4/2026).

After that, he moved on to developing other products.

However, after Nadiem was officially inaugurated, Sengupta was invited to a meeting discussing Chromebooks and their potential use in education in Indonesia.

The meeting took place in February 2020, and Sengupta was accompanied by the then-President of Google Asia Pacific, Scott Beaumont.

At the time, Sengupta answered many questions from Nadiem and his team.

“The ministry team had many questions about Google for Education and Chromebooks. They also explained their vision for digitalisation and improving the education system in Indonesia,” Sengupta explained.

Sengupta emphasised that at that time, Nadiem made no promises.

In fact, after the meeting, Google was pessimistic about working with Indonesia.

“As Scott explained earlier, we were quite pessimistic when leaving the meeting because the ministry side had many questions,” said Sengupta.

In the trial, Scott noted this pessimism stemmed from Kemendikbud’s greater familiarity with Google’s competitors, including Microsoft.

In the indictment, Nadiem is stated to have met several Google executives.