DANA and Ant Group launched SisBerdaya, a local initiative dedicated to empower Indonesian women entrepreneurs, primarily those from ultra-micro and micro businesses. The initiative helps these individuals to develop their business management and digital skills, keeping them competitive in the digital economy while advancing their businesses. The SisBerdaya is a 3-month mentorship and competition initiative open to female entrepreneurs in Indonesia.
What is SisBerday?
Focusing on empowering women from Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), the programme has two primary categories for entry – 1) the Ultra-micro category, which refers businesses with a staff size of 1-5 pax and record a monthly revenue of IDR 1million – IDR 10million; and 2) the Micro category, which refers businesses with a staff size of 6-20 pax and record a monthly revenue of IDR 11– 30million. Application are open until 17 April 2023.
During the first phase of judging, 180 applications from both categories will be selected by a panel of judges. Each of these applicants will receive a token cash prize, and are eligible to enter the next phase of the programme to receive a 1-month mentorship and skills training from a bench of experts from DANA, Ant Group and other industry and government partners.
The holistic training covered during the skills training phase range from Business Management, Digital Payment and Marketing, Selling Global Strategy, etc, designed to provide applicants a full experience vital to running day-to-day business and operations management, to guiding them on digital innovation. The sessions will be conducted in a hybrid mode with workshops in the Jabodetabek, Pekanbaru, and Makassar areas to make it easy for participation.
After, all participants will submit their business plans for final judging, and the top 5 will be gathered in Jakarta for a final pitching held in May 2023 to compete for the final prizes of up to IDR20 million. To make SisBerdaya a more inclusive programme, all materials developed during the skills training will be made available to public on DANA app after the programme ends, potentially benefitting another 100,000 women business owners in Indonesia.
What does SisBerdaya mean for DANA and Ant Group?
“This is our further commitment as a digital wallet that bridges Indonesia’s financial literacy and inclusion by expanding access to financial services for everyone, especially women, youth and MSMEs. Only 19% of the 500,000 MSMEs registered with DANA Bisnis are led by women,” said Agustina Samara, Chief People & Corporate Strategy of DANA Indonesia.
“This indicates that women’s lack of access, participation, and opportunities to use financial tech in their businesses may deter them from running their own business. Together with Ant Group, we hope to help encourage MSMEs led by women to have equal participation in the economic sector, expanding women’s access and opportunities for holistic digital financial services, and increasing Indonesia’s financial literacy and inclusion through SisBerdaya.”
“SisBerdaya is an initiative that is close to our heart as it elevates and empowers women’s role in the local community, and could lead to the start of a vibrant local community of women entrepreneurs who will continue to bond through knowledge sharing and networking to support each other. Growing this community is vital to advancing businesses and contributing to the local economy,” said Sabrina Peng, Chief Sustainability Officer, Ant Group.
“We are excited to work on SisBerdaya with our partner DANA. Together, we believe SisBerdaya will expand the development opportunities available to women entrepreneurs and support them to reach their full potential on a global scale,” Sabrina Peng concluded.
