Innovation

Lingkaran differentiates itself by its curriculum. It offers both offline and online programs with blended learning methods. One example of their program is the Career Ready Program (CRP) which lasts 45 days using blended learning methods. The topics include digital marketing, data analyst, UI/UX, and product management.

As time has gone by, Lingkaran has experienced rising competition in the market. The demand to access practical learnings and skills is significantly increasing due to the economic growth and the expansion of digitals. The study demand of customers nowadays also requires that training quality must be more diversified, sophisticated and tailored to various needs. These movements in the market have challenged Lingkaran to keep moving forward, yet also to be a standout with necessary innovations. And the innovation at Lingkaran is in its business model.

Lingkaran pays a lot of attention to research and has redesigned the learning journey process because they believe the way millennials learn nowadays is very different from how the “old-generation” students studied. That’s why Lingkaran has remodeled their curricula and training methods to fit with the insightful needs and behaviors of different target groups. The curricula now will have to reflect the growing market trends such as digital, data application, entrepreneurship, etc. Besides, Lingkaran has tailored its programs to accommodate specific needs and requirements focusing on learning experience and relevant issues of Industry 4.0, adapted to individual customers and company customers. Also, the business model of Lingkaran today not only focuses on content creation, but also on building and developing brand engagement by leveraging firstly its powerful community of learners. With a strong belief in “learning should be fun”, Lingkaran defines its brand as a vibrant and accessible education provider, which is different from the preconceived idea about education that existed for a long time in Indonesia.

Inspiration

Inspiration to establish Lingkaran initiated from just a personal issue of a young graduate who had difficulty starting his voice in real life, only with basic knowledge from formal university. But this is a typical example of how the “daring” and committed young generation found their way to solve problems and shifted the mindset of how proper learning should be accessible to everyone.

The main driver of Wendy (Lingkaran’s founder) is his deep passion to build a bridge to meet the gap between supply and demand. The supply is to help the youngsters who are putting in his “old shoes”, facing much confusion about how to meet the expectations of practical jobs that require more than just theoretical knowledge. And the demand is from business organizations who had a hard time recruiting high skill talents. They all feel university or formal education is not enough to satisfy the real-life human resource requirements.

When we asked Wendy about difficulties that Lingkaran has been through for the last 6 years, his answer surprised us with how positive young Indonesian people see the difficulties as valuable life-experience. Financial issues are also persistent because they are still bootstrapping. But besides that, Wendy gained a tremendous priceless lesson in team management that built up his personal development. Even with only 10 members managing a huge workload, each of Lingkaran's employees is an irreplaceable “weirdo”. We then can understand how Lingkaran could go that far with a unique culture promoting “weirdness” and “curiosity” from each member, because to Lingkaran “Our difference is our gift”. Lingkaran’s success is contributed by a great combination of diversification.

Being engaged in Lingkaran from the first days, Wendy is most of all proud to see that the model of Lingkaran has become more known and accepted by the young community. Nowadays, the name of Lingkaran says its identification. More and more similar organizations are established in Indonesia. Wendy is also proud that Lingkaran has survived and gone beyond 5 years only with “bootstrapping” (funding using their own money, not from investors).

When we asked him what message he wants to share in order to inspire the young generation through the success story of Lingkaran, Wendy simply, yet firmly, said that he urges the young generation to keep their authentic passion to create meaningful changes and to take the first action toward their objectives. There will be a lot of difficulties waiting in their journey, but the journey is worth to try when they believe they can create a positive impact on society. “Get curious, take a mission, and let’s go above and beyond!”.

Overall impact

Together with the significant growth in the economy, Indonesia still faces a bigger social challenge in how to close the gap in knowledge and skills for people between the formal school and the real-life “school”.

By breaking boundaries of education, providing better job opportunities and inciting economic growth. Lingkaran is a true example of how the young generation used business to contribute to the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals.

Business benefit

Lingkaran has provided training and help to connect to more than 20,000 learners, more than 1,200 partners across the three biggest cities in Indonesia. Among them, are 40% are entrepreneurs and 60% are highly educated professionals. It is estimated that after participation, learners see an increase in their salaries of 300%. Lingkaran also has helped entrepreneurs to successfully access new markets, partnerships, and expanded their networks. Concerning professional employees, Lingkaran has helped to promote people and to connect them to partner companies for career opportunities.

Lingkaran also reached out to governments and national schools to provide their input, feedback and sharing new experiences for future improvements in formal education. It has gradually created a great impact to change the professional lives of young people and it has transformed the mindset of how education should be. It was shared by Wendy as good news that: “Recently, we got good news from the Education Ministry that all fresh-graduates will be provided with an education card that opens their access to all learning hubs/organizations like Lingkaran. This is a positive movement from the government to improve young talents. And to us, we believe it is a proven success that our model has been accepted more widely and it’s a chance to widen our business opportunities too.”

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Social and environmental benefit

As the economy is changing at a lightning pace, the gap with practical knowledge and skills has become a serious issue, especially when it comes to the future of raising technology across every industry. The changes in the economy undoubtedly lead to urgent requirements to create a new generation of the labor force that is equipped with more sophisticated skills and knowledge. It’s no longer old news to see many young people dropped out of campus, started their self-made entrepreneurs or freelancers and even career-shifted these recent years in Indonesia. This reflects how youth think about their careers and how they define their success to meet the requirements of the labor market. This also raises the huge question of whether only formal education knowledge is enough for the young generation, or whether young Indonesians are suffering from a lack of skills required for qualified human resources.

While waiting for a huge change in the national education system, which takes a long time to generate an effective lift, Lingkaran is considered as a pioneering start-up that contributed to solving the social challenges of young talents. Through Lingkaran, people not only can access various high-quality courses or training to update their knowledge and to close their skills gap. It also helps to build confidence in the young generation to follow their career wish and reach out for help which is always available within Lingkaran’s network.

Interview

Wendy Pratama, Founder