Jakarta, 21 November 2017 – Telkomsel The NextDev 2017, a competition that encourages young Indonesians to work through technology, has reached its peak. After passing various selection stages since July 2017, CekMata, Squline, Karapan, and Marlin Booking were finally selected to be the four winners, setting aside the other finalists who entered the Top 20 round. These four best applications are judged to have the ability to provide solutions to problems that is in the midst of society.

Chief Executive Officer of Telkomsel Ririek Adriansyah said, "Congratulations to the four best applications of The NextDev 2017. Hopefully these applications can deliver a positive direct impact on improving the quality of life of people, especially in the areas of health, education, agriculture, and transportation.”

Ririek added that annually The NextDev competition continues to spawn innovative digital applications. This shows the high creativity of young Indonesians to find solutions using technology for problems that exist in the environment. This is in line with Telkomsel's efforts to build a digital ecosystem in Indonesia, where one of the main components is the presence of various quality applications created by the country's youth.

CekMata, Squline, Karapan, and Marlin Booking succeeded in winning The NextDev 2017 after passing the final judging phase based on judging panel panel consisting of startup practitioners and technology experts, Irfan Tachrir (Director of Human Capital Management of Telkomsel), Samuel Pangerapan (General Director of Informatics Applications of Ministry of ICT), Ariff Kamal (Associate SEO Director of GroupM), Dayu Dara (Vice President of GO-JEK), Dennis Adhiswara (CEO of Layaria), and Alamanda Shantika (Co-Founder of Binar).

In the final judging phase, as many as 20 finalists of The NextDev performed Final Pitching in front of the judging panel for three minutes. They tried to convince the jury of startup competencies and the digital applications they develop based on the problems they find, solutions offered, market validation, business models, product development plans, business development strategies, and team capabilities.

Based on the final pitching result, the finalists were again screened into eight finalists (two finalists from each category: e-Health, e-Education, e-Agriculture, and e-Transportation). The eight selected finalists then did a 'Startup Battle', to determine the main winner of each category.

In preparation for the final judging phase, the 20 finalists of The NextDev 2017 first participated in the mini bootcamp. In this short and intensive workshop, they received materials on Public Speaking, Startups Financing, and Character Building for Startup Success, facilitated by related practitioners, Yosanova (Assistant Vice President of Mark Plus), Dheta Aisyah (Chief Business Development Officer of Binar Academy) and Danu Wicaksana (CEO of TCASH).

The Top Four NextDev 2017 applications get the top prizes of 7M (Market Access, Marketing, Mentoring, Management Trips, Money, Monetizing, and Match Expert), and together with other finalists will follow advanced training from Telkomsel in The NextDev Academy program. This program will sharpen the quality of the applications they create. By participating in this academy, The NextDev finalists will have the opportunity to improve the scalability of social technopreneurs through self-development and upgrading in research and customer development, design sprint, branding, product development, as well as business model and bootstrapping.

"We see technology can be an acceleration in solving a problem. Through The NextDev, we hope this program can provide inspiration for more young Indonesians to work through technology, realize their ideas and dreams through the creation of digital applications that can benefit the lives of the wider community,” concluded Ririek.