Team Lexicon Beneficial Ownership’s enthusiasm is contagious. Whether around new tools they’re learning or being able to contribute their skills in a meaningful way, the Jakarta-based team has been squirreling away at their anti-corruption tool’s functionality as much as they’ve been growing networks of potential users both in Indonesia and Singapore. 

We chatted to them about their progress since participating in the South East Asia edition of Hackcorruption in April this year, where they were one of five winning teams who went on to bootcamp and received $10 000 to further develop and launch their solution.

Their tech platform flags companies with a history of fraud for procurement officers, law enforcement, and CSOs. It’s aimed at finding people or companies that have verdicts from criminal offences in the area of corruption, bribery, fraud, environmental issues, as well as international sanctions. The team would also like to use the beneficial ownership data points they gather for deeper research and analysis for stakeholders.

Evandri Pantouw’s technical background is in data science, but he is the team’s networker-in-chief. As a lawyer and government consultant, he’s made connections with Indonesia’s Supreme Court, the Singapore Academy of Law, various general counsel, and some legal departments in universities in Singapore. The team will also be attending Tech Law Fest, a legal tech convention in the country in September. 

“In South East Asia there aren’t many legal tech players, so we hope that we will be done testing Lexicon by that time so we can showcase its beneficial ownership at that event”.

The team will be focus-group testing their solution this month. In preparation, they have shared Lexicon Beneficial Ownership with 12 procurement officers – 8 from government ministries, and 4 from the private sector –  to get a jump on improving the tool before the official focus group. 

“We hope to get honest feedback on what we need to tweak or what functions we need to add. Are they able to use the product? What kind of revenue stream can we get out of it? And do users get satisfaction from using the product?” explained Pantouw.

The team has identified five data sources to be integrated into their platform, including from the Indonesian Supreme Court. Muhammad Hanif Ramadhan works with team member Adryan Eka Vandra on the tool’s backend API, programming and data design, and similarly to other Hackcorruption teams, shares that one of the biggest challenges is streamlining data from different sources. They’re also working on building a robust search engine to ensure quick and easy background checks in procurement due diligence processes. 

Front-end developer Fawwaz Andriawan has enjoyed having the freedom to develop the product in his own way, experimenting with technologies he has just learned by testing them in Lexicon Beneficial Ownership. He’s also appreciated the input and insights on product development from Hackcorruption mentors 

“The thing I remember the most is that we have to iterate, iterate, iterate our product to make it better and better,” he says laughingly. 

He also shares how the microgrant from winning the competition has enabled the team to host their product on their own server and Evandri to travel and meet many potential users.

As conversations with stakeholders continue, many other opportunities have emerged to contribute to anti-corruption efforts in different ways. The team is also working with the Indonesia Anti-Corruption Agency on corruption in funding for the development of villages, and Indonesia’s Attorney General’s Office interested in easily being able to identify people or entities accused of corruption.

The team attributes being able to create these connections so quickly with having a stamp of approval on their product already. They have leveraged their Hackcorruption win to get their tool in front of government agencies and legal entities both inside and outside Indonesia – building the partnerships they need to sustainably grow their solution.

Team Lexicon Beneficial Ownership hopes that one day their solution will impact people at all levels. Pantouw believes that not only officials, but the system itself is not built to be transparent and accountable, that there is no opportunity for people to channel their issues to government officials. 

“Through Hackcorruption we can answer the problem on a smaller scale. But we can replicate this kind of initiative, not just on transnational crime, but on issues for rural and for indigenous people. How can we make sure that marginalized people get their rights and more accountable systems? So they get their social benefits, and that there are channels for them to register their complaints,” he says.

“This is what I see for Lexicon 10 years from now. “For every voice and information to be heard”. 

Samina Anwary