James Pratama – How James Pratama’s Upbringing Fueled His Desire To Build Mission-Oriented Companies

Written by: James Carnell

Growing up in Indonesia exposed James Pratama to the hardships of life that many underprivileged communities face in developing countries. Issues such as a lack of access to education, sanitation, and healthcare were inescapable realities for so many. While most people might be bogged down by the overwhelming weight of these problems, James was instead overcome with drive and motivation to help solve the issues that contributed to the struggles of those around him.

By the time he reached high school, James had become obsessed with understanding how organizations can be designed to solve big societal problems. James was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to study abroad in the United States, attending Babson College in Boston to study entrepreneurship. James refused to let the opportunity be in vain, and was immediately focused on finding a way to give back to those back in his home country.

A heart-centered entrepreneur is born

James’ first business venture was a social enterprise called Orange Papaya. He worked with several small Indonesian communities to organize centers where the local people could donate their old newspapers. From there, a group of women living in underprivileged areas of Jakarta would upcycle the newspaper to create one-of-a-kind, hand-made notebooks that James would sell in the US.

The benefits of the organization were multifaceted. Firstly, it helped to reduce trash waste and educated the local populations about the benefits of recycling. Secondly, it provided an opportunity for these women to make money to support themselves and their families. Most of them could not have worked in typical labor industries, such as factories, because they had to stay at home to raise their children.

The hand-woven newspaper notebook covers were beautiful, and Orange Papaya sold hundreds of them. In total, the organization raised nearly $5K from about 100 backers through the crowd-funding platform, Kickstarter. With a taste of success and a sense of pride knowing that he had made a real impact for his community, James was more motivated than ever to experiment with various models of impact creation.

Harnessing data to understand and improve

After graduating from Babson College, James decided to pursue a career that combined his interests of data and technology. He joined the team at DataRobot in 2019 as an AI Solutions Lead Analyst and within a year was promoted to Strategic Initiatives Product Manager.

When speaking about what drew him to this role, James explained that “data is at the core of every decision we make, and the key is understanding how to harness data in a way that influences some sort of outcome and decision. If data is available but isn’t functional or intuitive, then it won’t have any impact. For data to actually influence a decision and outcome, it has to be communicated to people in a way that is useful and intuitive.”

During his time with the company, James built functional tools, such as DataRobot Pathfinder, that accelerated global AI adoption by helping enterprises and governments understand which business decisions in their field can be augmented or automated with artificial intelligence. He led the product management of Pathfinder from its inception to deployment.

Today, Pathfinder is a library of over 100 use cases that guides executives, data scientists, and business analysts on how to implement these solutions from both a technical and process perspective. It is the most comprehensive public library of machine learning use cases in the market. As a result of his work, DataRobot has helped thousands of business leaders across the United State leverage real insights and data from top data scientists, and convey this information in an intuitive and comprehensible way.

Returning to entrepreneurship with a new, local focus

After his experience at DataRobot, James felt a strong calling to return back to entrepreneurship. In early 2021, alongside his friend and co-founder Leo Liu, James realized that a lot of people were looking for a way to easily find fun things to do in the city after a year of being cooped up inside because of the pandemic. Some of the platforms they tried either focused on activities for tourists, or just acted as a dump of information with no real value to the end user. After some long nights and many conversations, they realized there was a huge opportunity to build a product that consolidated all of this information in one place, and also acted as a way to build community and memories through shared experiences. Thus, Alohop was born.

James has been critical in the creation of the curated local experience platform, which is currently designed to be the go-to place for locals who are looking for date ideas, things to do with a group of friends, or pick up a new hobby. James led all aspects of the development and design of the product to make it a user friendly platform, so that users can easily find and book an experience in minutes.

This one-stop, reliable solution is backed by a curation team who is responsible for actually trying every experience that ends up on the platform. Through speaking with users, James came to understand how important it is for their users to trust Alohop’s recommendations. On the other end, James also spends a lot of time speaking with local experience creators to understand their problems and goals. Being able to understand the needs of both groups has been crucial in developing this dual-sided marketplace. Now, Alohop is able to provide value to locals who want to try high-quality, novel experiences, as well as to creators who want to build their businesses and attract more customers.

Since the platform launched, Alohop has built a network of over 40 local creators in Boston. James and his co-founder Leo have plans to scale the company in Boston first, and then expand to other key cities across the country.

James has an unmatched ability to design and deliver products that create opportunities to uplift local economies, while also positively impacting the lives of their users. At the core of it all, Alohop is tapping into the innate human need for connection, and it has been exciting to see the impacts of their work unfold. Maybe your city is next!

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes