Did you know that climate solutions and entrepreneurship can become the main drivers for economic recovery and sustainability?

However, Indonesian women made up only 12% of all STEM graduates (2018). In the global energy industry, only 11% of energy startup founders are women – these statistics need to change. 

Last year, New Energy Nexus Indonesia rolled out its first phase of the Bali Women Climate Entrepreneur project to bridge the gender gap and increase women’s meaningful participation in the climate innovation sector. The Project is only the beginning of our efforts to disrupt the rooted beliefs that the clean energy and climate tech sectors are the ‘boys club’.

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“It would be easy in Indonesia or in general if us women lead a business relating to cosmetics or skincare, but the challenges are real if women lead a business on technology, finance, or climate solutions.”

Megawati Sutjipto, Finance Mentor for Biorock Indonesia

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Harness the power of collaborative work

It takes a village to cultivate an enabling learning community and ensure its sustainability, therefore, New Energy Nexus Indonesia has partnered with:

Pratisara Bumi Foundation contributed as one of NEX’s implementation partners to ensure that our approach takes into account Bali’s local wisdom.

We engaged with Megawati Sutjipto, Chief Financial Officer of Swap Energi, to be our Finance Mentor in Residence supporting Biorock Indonesia. One of the objectives of the mentorship program is to ensure that Biorock Indonesia has a standardized operating procedure. As well as Eko Prasetyo, Head of Brand Communications at Ninja Express, as Marketing Communications Mentor in Residence for Bendega Indonesia. Through mentorship, Bendega embarked on applying its learnings by producing its first brand collateral, photo product, company profile, and impact storytelling for marketing purposes. 

As well as our esteemed professional practitioners and mentors throughout the entire program:

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Startup spotlight

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Embracing change, go with bigger goals

GoSustainable first came with an idea to create a Climatarian Movement. This was a concept for restaurants and the public, selling certificates for restaurants that sold PLUMO-compliant dishes (PLUMO refers to Plant-based, Locally Sourced, Unprocessed, Minimal Waste, and Organic). GoSustainable saw this as being a not-for-profit initiative and was looking to simply cover associated costs. However, restaurants did not jump onto this idea, citing that it created more work for them to check the backgrounds of all the ingredients they were using. Costs were not covered.

GoSustainable saw an opportunity through the program to challenge their assumptions behind the Climatarian Movement. With the group training and tailored mentoring, GoSustainable repeatedly reviewed the core problems to address and potential solutions. The result rebranded as the PLUMO app and first aired at a NEX-sponsored hackathon, resulted from NEX assistance, and represented a significant change in the business model. For GoSustainable, this is no longer a “side project” but is now part of its core business.

They continued to develop their idea in NEX Indonesia’s Hackathon program, a nationwide competition for climate innovators and won 3rd place out of almost 100 team applications.

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Building Confidence as Women Entrepreneurs

“The 1-on-1 mentoring approach greatly aids in shaping and implementing our business concepts. Our business idea underwent significant transformation within this program. Initially, the outline of our business concept was quite broad, but through our participation in this program, our business ideas became much more focused and concrete.”

– Adiel Chrissetia (Consultant at GoSustainable)

“Where the project had the most impact from a gender perspective was in building the confidence of women in their own business acumen, their business ideas, and in their position promoting their climate solutions to their peers—including men and women.” 

“NEX provided examples of inspirational women leaders who showed that women can be as effective, if not more effective, leaders than men. Materials were more about gender equality and justice in business leadership.” – Participant of Bali Women Climate Entrepreneurs Project

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UPDATE:
New Energy Nexus Indonesia is entering phase two of the project, through Matangi Bali Initiative, where we engage university students and young innovators to join our thought-provoking discussions and series of interactive capacity-building sessions.