Augmenting Back-End and Artificial Intelligence to Eradicate Financial Fraud in Indonesia

Kaspersky (2022) reported that among Southeast Asia countries, Indonesia ranked number one in financial fraud. It's not surprising since the case number reaches 208,238. The leading factor of the phenomenon is the massive number of people's interest in social media. However, they are considered to be reckless in obeying privacy policies. The low technology security then contributes to enhancing the severity.

Reza Juliandri (22), an Information Systems student from Universitas Multimedia Nusantara, put his attention on the issue. Through his passion for technology since Elementary School, he demands to lessen the case number. Working on Kredibel–the big data startup focusing on fraud and trust in the financial field–became his starting point for the realization.

Let's dive into his whole story to discover how technology could lessen the number of financial frauds in Indonesia!

The Story Behind How Kredibel's CEO Offered a Work to Reza

Little Reza used to play games in internet cafes near his house. Nothing was significant other than lingering on the desktop for fun until he realized an HTML code.

At that time, the eldest of the two defined that HTML code was for game creation. He was eager to execute it, but later he knew it referred to a website-related thing. From this beginning, he wanted to be a developer focused on the Back-End side.

Years passed with his self-learning, and he enrolled as a Computer Software Engineer student at SMKN 5 Tangerang, a public vocational high school, to keep on track with his passion.

While studying at the vocational school, he was vigorous enough to join many web creation competitions under the guidance of an organization called ITCommunity. Therefore, this path led Reza to further achievement, in which he got a job offer from Kredibel's CEO. How come?

Does social media help Reza with the matter? Yes, it was. He posted his achievements there, winning third, second, and first place in several competitions he participated in. As any information spread straightforwardly, Kredibel's CEO was interested in recruiting him for a Back-End Engineer position after.

Hence, the one that assembled him as a stand-out candidate was the website design for the "Lomba Kompetensi Siswa Banten." At that moment, he utilized different programming languages for Back-End and Front-End sides. After completing all the processes, he archived the data to GitHub.

Reza registered as a freshman at Universitas Multimedia Nusantara three years later. He took Information Systems to nurture his path during Vocational High School. On this occasion, he is still responsible for the Back-End Engineer position in Kredibel.

Balancing the schedule as a student and a worker in Kredibel was uneasy. He used to manage his time well so that his to-dos didn't collide. Sometimes, he felt overwhelmed by running two roles simultaneously.

However, Kredibel gave a flexible schedule for Reza since his status as an active student takes a lot of time. Dealing with any urgent matter and the deadline, he usually spends his weekend working on his responsibilities. The break time amidst one course and another is also his chance to execute it.

"That's indeed the challenging part I ought to overcome," Reza said. Besides time management, he added that other soft skills are required for better workflow: communication and negotiation. From those two, he could adjust the deadline by taking other considerations as long as the target is achieved.

Reza's Headway with Kredibel

Kredibel was initiated in 2016, leading Indonesia's vision and mission to lessen financial fraud. This one impressed Reza to accept the job offer from the CEO. Moreover, it helped him select the university major as he thought that Information Systems is a science where technology and business principles compound.

Furthermore, Kredibel's vision and mission align with Reza's enthusiasm for learning various programming languages, such as PHP, Java, Python, Kotlin, Javascript, and Typescript. The question is, how does he adapt to those differences? Persistence in managing data errors while coding is indeed the challenging part he should overcome. He added that reading a piece of articles could also help him to cope with the stuck point.

What's the next step after Reza maps out programming languages? He envisioned learning Back-End and Machine Learning as they have vast scope implementation in companies' needs nowadays. He later completed the series of headway processes by deepening Artificial Intelligence in his workplace with the seniors there.

“My thesis is about solving problems in Kredibel’s site, and I’m required to learn Artificial Intelligence to cover it,” Reza elaborated.

Reza's Next Headway with Bangkit

Reza started his participation as a Bangkit Cohort in 2022. Among three available learning paths there, his choice fell into Mobile Development. What's his motivation to broaden the scope of learning technology?

Upgrading the skills could balance the demand of work requirements nowadays. Reza started his concern. Moreover, he had a chance to learn Mobile Development on the previous occasion in Dicoding. It then sparked his interest by discovering the extended thing that relates to something he is familiar with, Back-End.

“In my opinion, Back-End and Mobile Development correlate perceiving a complicated work cycle. We need to equate one lesson and another,” Reza expressed.

During Bangkit, Reza highlighted his experiences working on the Product Based Capstone Project and exam for gaining AAD certification. This learning program provided him with solid principles (a coding process), creating architecture for industries' needs, and English sessions to boost his communication skill.

Therefore, English sessions were things he was grateful for. What business is it for? Taking a break from Kredibel, he enrolled in an internship in Traveloka as a Back-End Engineer from August to December. He did it after graduating from Bangkit.

Learning a foreign language, he states that it helps a lot in communication skills, let alone he worked for a startup.

“I learned Kotlin in Bangkit, and it helped me carry out my role in Traveloka. It also enhances my skill to develop Kredibel from different perspectives.”

Discovering Bangkit somehow burst Reza into a grateful feeling. His passion and concern about financial fraud in Indonesia elevated his keenness. He is ready to employ his knowledge to prevent any suspicious input in Kredibel from swindlers.

However, one of his contributions to society manifested through becoming Bangkit's mentor. This role is about more than just teaching others since he has further consideration.

“Teaching others could be a method for us to learn. In Bangkit, the Cohorts dropped the problems to me as I had to assist them in coping. It helps me discover something new through challenging and memorable processes.”

Reza's Note for Bangkit's Cohort 2023

Remember the 2018 timeline; Reza once participated in the Google Code-In, a world contest to introduce students to open-source projects. As a Grand Prize Winner, he was invited to visit Google's main campus and San Francisco offices in Northern California, USA, for a four-day trip. In addition, he was also allowed to present his work at Google Indonesia alongside Google Science Fair finalists. What did he do until he won the official trip abroad?

At that time, he used Python to generate an open-source network management system for personal and company use. Spending a lot of time learning and facing a ton of failure didn't dampen his determination to win the competition.

On the other hand, his experiences, still moving forward amid challenging moments, trained him to be a formidable Cohort while finishing all the Bangkit sessions.

“Don’t give up, although it’s hard. There is the insight we could afford for our self-value,” he closed the interview.

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