A. S. Kartika, Software Developer, ICT Agency in Samarinda Local Government (East Kalimantan), Indonesia
By Yun Xuan Poon
Women in GovTech Special Report 2019.
I'm developing Android softwares for my government in Samarinda. I design them and make sure that they work. I have a team of programmers in Samarinda developing softwares for government, such as Antrian Online and e-Kelurahan. These softwares are designed specially for people in Samarinda.
What has been the most exciting thing that you worked on in 2019?
I am very excited about Antrian Online, or Queue Online. The queue for government services is usually very long, so we created a software to track the queues inside the government office. Citizens can take a queue number from their phones using this Android application and come into the government building when it’s about to be their turn.
In 2018, I completed a website called API Samarinda Kota. It’s very exciting. This website builds application programming interfaces for app developers, and it helped to create e-Kelurahan and Antrian Online. e-Kelurahan is a digital platform for village office services, and it will be part of a larger digital service that will help citizens access government services more easily.
In the government, I like to share data with other people, whether it’s statistical data or other data. We have an app that tells you where everything is In Samarinda. Where the nearest public transport station is, where the nearest restaurant is etc.
What is the best thing you have experienced in your career?
I saw software programmers work very hard to make conclusions out of gigantic bits of data. How can they do it? How do they do it? It's very exciting for me to see how you can process 30GB of data every day. And they can find out that this piece of data is not good, while that data is good. They can also tell if there’s trouble with some network or with any piece of the data.
If you were to share one piece of advice that you learned in 2019, what would it be?
I believe that hard work will never cheat you. Even if there's no money. People can pay you less, but the money is not important. If people use what I give, use my recipes, use my baby - these are my babies! - this is the best payment I’ll ever get.
What do you hope to achieve in your role?
My dream is for people in Samarinda to be able to make appointments to see a doctor. Sometimes waiting to see a doctor is very time-consuming. I also want every doctor in Samarinda to have an app to track their patients’ medical records and fill in the data there. That’s my dream. I hope that I can develop it one day, but we’re really really far away from it now.
What are your priorities for 2020?
I want to focus on creating an application that will make access to government services easier. We are already working on developing this application. All citizens in Samarinda have to do is to install an app in their Android phone or iPhone. This will make accessing government services less time-consuming.
It's not just me that worked on this project, our very talented developers in Samarinda worked very hard on it.
What is one challenge you would like to take on in 2020?
In my work, I base it on what we have to do. I work for the government, so I cannot do what I want. I just want to continue working for the people in Samarinda, and hopefully the government can touch everyone in Samarinda.
What has been your fondest memory from the past year?
My favourite moment this year is when a lot of talented, non-government people in Samarinda came together to share their skills and develop an application for building government websites. In Samarinda, not every government office has a website. We built websites one by one by one, and this really helped every government office in Samarinda have a website.
It's pretty amazing, because they really really helped us a lot. Thanks to God, a lot of things are good. So this is what they did with a lot of hard work. It never cheats.