Why Indonesia's E-KTP Failure Was Never About the Chip
A look at how a well-specified national ID system still collapsed — and why the postmortem should focus on governance, not procurement.
Read article →Digital Governance · Technology Policy · E-Government
Technology shapes society. But society shapes technology too — and we often forget that.
I study, build, and write about how public institutions adopt technology — from ballots to banking — and why the systems that succeed are the ones designed around people, not just around code.
R. Ariq Syahalam
01 — Lens
Interdisciplinary
I read policy the way an engineer reads a system, and code the way a lawyer reads a contract — technical, legal, and operational, all at once.
02 — Audience
Policy-Oriented
My research is built to be read by the people who write regulations and run public digital services — not just by other academics.
03 — Ground
Indonesia in Focus
Most of my case studies are drawn from Indonesian e-government — a fast-moving, high-stakes testing ground for digital governance.
About
From building products to studying the systems that regulate them.
I started in Information Systems, moved into product management, and along the way kept running into the same wall: the best-built technology still fails when the institution around it isn't ready. That question — why some public technology adoption succeeds and most quietly fails — is what pulled me toward e-government research.
Today I split my time between shipping products at scale — in banking, telecom, and consumer tech — and studying digital governance and public sector technology adoption. I see these as the same project from two directions: one builds the systems, the other studies why they work or don't.
This site is where both sides meet — research, writing, and a record of the products I've helped build.
View full experience →Based inIndonesia
Research FocusE-Government · Digital Governance · ICT4D
B.Sc.Information Systems, Universitas Indonesia
Research
Understanding how public institutions adopt technology.
Can e-voting actually work in a developing democracy — and what has to be true about the institution around it, not just the technology, for that to happen?
Featured Research
Readiness Factors for E-Voting Adoption in Indonesia
An empirical study of the organizational and social readiness factors that determine whether Indonesian institutions can adopt e-voting — finding that trust and process clarity mattered more than technical capability.
E-VotingTechnology AdoptionQualitative Research
View Thesis →
Research Interests
Writing
Analysis, opinion, and ideas.
Short essays on digital governance, technology regulation, and what public-sector product work in Indonesia actually looks like up close.
What "Digital Sovereignty" Actually Requires
Unpacking a phrase that shows up in every policy document but rarely comes with a working definition — or a budget.
Read article →Building for Regulators, Not Just Users
Lessons from shipping regulated fintech products on treating compliance as a design constraint, not an afterthought.
Read article →Work
3+ years building digital products at scale.
Across banking, telecom, and early-stage tech — shipping products that had to survive contact with real regulation and real users.
Product Manager
Bank Rakyat IndonesiaMar 2026 – Present
Leading a regulated investment product from concept through compliance review, working directly with legal and risk teams to keep the build both usable and defensible.
Product Owner
TelkomselOct 2025 – Feb 2026
Owned a consumer-facing feature area used at national scale, balancing rapid iteration with the operational weight of a large, established telecom platform.
Product Manager
Trendier AIMay – Sep 2025
Shaped early product direction for an AI platform on a fully remote, Korea-based team, learning to build product judgment without a shared room or timezone.
IT Project Manager
VelodivaDec 2024 – Jul 2025
Coordinated cross-functional delivery across engineering, design, and label partners in a fast-moving music tech environment.
iOS Product Manager
Apple Developer AcademyMar – Dec 2024
Selected for a highly competitive fellowship focused on mobile product craft — the starting point for how I think about product today.
Contact
Let's talk.
Open to research collaboration, speaking invitations, consulting, or simply exchanging ideas about technology and public policy.
ariqsyahalam@risya.id
linkedin.com/in/ariqsyahalam