The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic is also felt by essential daily service providers because consumers are getting rarer so that their income is getting smaller. Concerned about these conditions, five students of the Sepuluh Nopember Institute of Technology (ITS) designed an application called ‘Bantu.Ind’ as a forum for providing daily service needs or daily service from small groups of people who are experts in their respective fields. This application provides daily services, such as massage services, cleaning service, home, appliance and electronic repair, vehicle repair and treatment, beauty, and plumbing.
One of the team members, Nur Muhammad Adi Yahya explained that on one hand, the target market for the Bantu.Ind application is a group of people who like to order services online; Bantu.Ind also provides five features that can help users. They are Profile, Online Booking, Categories, Chat, and Transaction.
On the other hand, partners as service providers can also register themselves by selecting partner options on the first page of the application after installing Bantu.Ind. Afterwards, the partners can choose the category of services provided and fill out the form and the required requirements. Furthermore, they only wait for an answer from the application via Whatsapp or email. Finally, the partners are directed to the interview stage which then if they pass, they officially become the partners of Bantu.Ind.
In terms of the transaction mechanism between users and partners, users will first see the rates set by partners. If the user wants to change the service rate set, then the user can discuss it with partners about this.
The meaning of the name Bantu.Ind consists of two words, namely Bantu which means to help, and Ind which means Indonesia. So literally, this application means 'Helping Indonesia'. This is also in line with the purpose of designing the application, which is to help the income of the Indonesian working community during the pandemic.
Adi admits that Bantu.Ind still needs a lot of further development. This includes applications that are still at the prototype stage. So, programming simulations are needed to prove that they can function properly.
Adi then added that he and his colleagues prepared a prototype for this Bantu.Ind application for about two months. In addition, through the innovation of the Bantu.Ind application, this student team has also succeeded in getting the 2nd place in the International Youth Business Competition 2022 organized by the Indonesian Young Scientist Association (IYSA).