Rumah Pendidikan brought Indonesia its first victory in the e-government category of WSIS Prizes 2026. The achievement showed that digital transformation is about creating simple, convenient and reliable public services for citizens through technology, rather than technology itself.

Background: WSIS Prizes is an international competition held within the World Summit on the Information Society. Organized by the United Nations’ International Telecommunication Union (ITU), it recognizes outstanding projects that contribute to society’s development through information and communication technologies.

For many years, the digital transformation of government was assessed through quantitative measures such as the number of applications launched, the money spent and the level of technological advancement.

Citizens, however, are not interested in which technologies their government uses.

People care about simple questions: have public services become easier to use, are they delivered faster and, most importantly, do they improve their lives?

Digital transformation is not a race to build more applications. It is a process of reshaping the relationship between the state and citizens through simple, reliable public services designed around human needs.

When services become easier to access, operate transparently and solve people’s real problems, trust in public institutions grows.

Conversely, overly complicated technologies deepen the divide between government and citizens.

I would like to share my reflections from the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), held in Geneva, Switzerland, on 9 July 2026.

When Indonesia’s official education superapp, Rumah Pendidikan, was announced as the winner, I naturally felt a sense of pride.

Previously, Indonesia’s highest achievement had been the “champion” status awarded to the JAKI (Jakarta Now) superapp in 2021.

Launched by Indonesia’s Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, Rumah Pendidikan aims to bring teachers, students, schools, parents and government partner organizations together on a single digital platform.

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto specifically recognized Rumah Pendidikan’s achievement at a plenary cabinet meeting on 20 July.

From digitalization to simplicity

Indonesia is an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands. This creates serious challenges in ensuring equal educational opportunities. Digitalization is advancing rapidly, but the country consistently takes these significant geographic barriers into account.

Previously, Indonesian teachers had to use several applications for different tasks. Parents struggled to find the services they needed. Students had to switch between platforms to access educational resources.

In other words, digitalization had happened, but the process had not become easier for users.

That was when I realized that integration means much more than simply connecting different systems.

Above all, integration means reducing the administrative burden that citizens have experienced for years.

Repeatedly filling in identical forms, creating new accounts and submitting the same information takes valuable time away from teachers, parents and schools. Teachers could spend that time teaching, parents could spend it with their children, and schools could use it to improve educational quality.

The purpose of digital transformation is to return that time to people.

That is why Rumah Pendidikan was never conceived as an ordinary application. It was designed as a shared digital space, bringing educational services for teachers, students, parents, schools and local government authorities together in one integrated ecosystem.

Why “Rumah”?

The name Rumah Pendidikan (“House of Education”) was first proposed by Indonesia’s Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Professor Abdul Mu’ti.

For me, choosing the word rumah (“home”) carries a much deeper meaning than simply naming a digital platform.

A home is a place where everyone feels valued and supported, where they can grow and where they can always return when needed.

This philosophy later found expression in RAMAH, the organizational culture underpinning the ministry’s digital services. Its foundations are responsiveness, accountability, a service orientation, adaptability and harmony.

Today, Rumah Pendidikan brings together 66 education services on a single platform. It has more than 6.9 million users and over 67 million visits, and its work is supported by more than 50 strategic partners.

More than 104,000 teachers in Indonesia’s border, remote and disadvantaged regions use the platform to improve teaching and learning. More than 339,000 educational institutions across 513 districts and cities use Rapor Pendidikan (“Education Report”) as their main tool for data-informed planning.

From schooling to lifelong learning

The most important changes I have witnessed relate to a shift in approach, rather than technology.

For many years, our understanding of education was confined to school: the school building and classroom lessons.

In reality, education does not end when the school bell rings.

Rumah Pendidikan’s main purpose is to help establish education as a continuous process that lasts throughout life and can take place anywhere.

In this approach, teachers remain at the center of education. Technology does not replace them; it becomes their closest assistant.

This principle matters even more today, as artificial intelligence develops rapidly.

AI can help teachers prepare learning materials, analyze students’ progress and reduce administrative work. Yet no technology can replace the care, mentorship and human relationships between teachers and students.

For that reason, I do not regard the WSIS Prizes 2026 award as the end of this journey.

Instead, it reminds us once again that digital transformation must go beyond developing new applications or adopting modern technologies.

In my view, international awards are only one form of recognition.

The most important measure is citizens’ everyday experience of public services.

Perhaps, ultimately, the true meaning of digital transformation in education will emerge in very simple things: people will no longer need to worry about which application to open, which form to complete or which office to contact, and will be able to devote their attention and time to what matters most — learning, teaching and growing.

Yudhishtira Nugraha

About the author: Head of the Communications and Public Relations Service at Indonesia’s Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education. He previously headed the ministry’s Data and Information Technology Center in 2024–2026 and led the Jakarta Smart City project in 2019–2023. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) in cybersecurity from the University of Oxford, United Kingdom.

Source: egov.uz