Enthusiasm is What Keeps Innovation Alive
A Story of Adisti Anjani Putri, Bangkit 2022 Graduate from Electrical Engineering, Universitas Udayana
"Every woman’s success should be an inspiration to another. We’re strongest when we cheer each other on.” Melinda GatesMelinda’s statement above implies that women are capable of achieving their dreams and being an inspiration to others. They have the potential to succeed in any field, from science to technology.
Regarding women’s involvement in technology, unfortunately, the gap is still substantial—only 26.7% of women hold tech-related jobs. Similarly, technology firms with over 10.000 employees report women’s representation at just 26.2% (Statista, 2021).
This wall is what Adisti Anjani Putri (22) tried to leap over. Being a woman didn’t stop her from shining in Bangkit. Apart from being a distinguished graduate, she and her capstone team also created Fishku, one of the Top 15 Product-Based Capstone Projects in Bangkit 2022, and deserved incubation funds from Google and Dikti.
The story below proves that anything is possible, including for a woman to shine in a male-dominated industry.
Seeing Tech as Something That Can Simplify People’s Life
Disti–that’s what she’s called–was born in Cimahi and grew up in Jakarta. She comes from a humble family, where her father is a private employee, and her mother is a housewife. As the eldest child, Disti always brought discipline and responsibility as good examples for her younger siblings. This value is what shaped her path to success.
At first, Disti became interested in technology when she realized that technology is helpful for everyday life. With technology, people can communicate easily and access valuable information. Even better, technology can also solve many problems in the real world.
From there, Disti wanted to learn technology, especially Cloud Computing, to simplify people’s daily lives. This aligns with Disti’s parents’ wishes, who hope she will succeed in contributing to people around her.
When Disti Thrived in Bangkit
To make her dreams come true, Disti pursued higher education at Universitas Udayana, majoring in Informatics Engineering. During college, Disti received information about Bangkit from her friend.
Curious about this program, Disti did her research. Not long after that, she found that Bangkit was initiated by Google and supported by leading tech industries, such as GoTo and Traveloka. Moreover, Bangkit was also under the auspices of Kampus Merdeka, allowing her to convert the semester credit on campus if she decided to participate. Seeing all the benefits she could get, Disti registered for Bangkit 2022.
"I joined Bangkit to develop logic, programming, and cloud architect skills to create projects that can impact the wider community."
Besides the tech training, Disti also honed her soft skills and English with expert guidance. Her favorite complementary classes were Time Management and Adaptability, Business Presentations, and Spoken Correspondence.
The courses in Bangkit prepared Disti to be a career-ready tech talent and equipped her with anything necessary to pass the Associate Cloud Engineer (ACE) certification exam. Moreover, Bangkit also gave her a glimpse of the tech professional world through the capstone project.
"When I took the Time Management class, I gained new insights about 4 time quadrants, which categorize activities or tasks based on their urgency: urgent and important, less urgent, less important, less urgent and important. With this method, I know better what’s a priority and what’s not.”
“Women Can Have Excelling Tech Career”
Besides succeeding in improving her Cloud Computing skills and creating back-ends for applications, Disti also gave her best in working on the product-based capstone project. With her team, Disti developed Fishku, a fisheries e-commerce platform that can detect fish freshness via mobile phone. This innovation led Disti’s team to reach the top 15 and deserve the incubation fund.However, as a woman who aspired to achieve many in the tech industry, Disti was still aware that women often face stereotypes and expectations that may differ from their male colleagues. To overcome these challenges, Disti said building self-confidence, improving technical skills, and being part of a supportive professional network are essential.
“I want to show my fellow female tech talents that women can have distinguished and excelling careers in the tech industry. Hopefully, it could inspire other women struggling in Bangkit to achieve their tech dream.”
Disti’s New Journey as a Cloud Engineer
After going through a lot in Bangkit and being appointed Chief of Technology Officer (CTO) of Fishku, Adisti graduated from this program. As an alumna, she gave back to Bangkit by becoming a mentor in Bangkit 2023 for CC-54 and CC-01 classes. To teach is to learn twice over, which made Disti more confident in her field. That was what finally led Disti to her current job.
Her career journey began after she applied for an Infrastructure & Cloud Engineer position at AsiaQuest, an IT services company based in Jakarta. Not long after applying via LinkedIn, Disti got the opportunity to attend the interview session. Her experience and skills helped her to be hired finally.
“As an Infrastructure & Cloud Engineer, I’m responsible for setting up the environment on the cloud platform, creating an application to notify if there’s a vulnerability in an instance, sending it to the chat platform via cloud functions, and integrating IoT devices into OpenSearch via the cloud platform.”
To end the interview session, Disti added some words for women in tech:
“Be courageous in pursuing your dreams because every small step will take you to big changes. Focus on developing technical skills and making the most of your learning resources. Enthusiasm is what keeps innovation alive. Believe that every effort will take you closer to your dreams.”
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