From Invisible to Findable: Placing Micro-Enterprises on Public Digital Infrastructure in Indonesia

Abstract

A micro-enterprise with no entry on a public digital map is, to anyone who does not already know it, effectively unfindable. This article reports a community engagement programme in Tiroang ward, Pinrang Regency, South Sulawesi, that placed fifteen such enterprises on that map and completed a business profile for each. The work proceeded in four stages: observation, on-site enumeration and verification, assisted listing and profile completion, and a publication check  with every enterprise visited at its own premises. Seven profile fields were completed for every listing: business name, street address, map pin, category, contact number, opening hours and photographs. The article makes two arguments that the original field report did not. First, an output placed on public digital infrastructure is unusually auditable: unlike a poster, a booklet or a training session, any reader can search the business name and inspect the result without the authors’ cooperation, which makes this class of engagement output self-verifying in a literature that rarely offers verifiable evidence at all. Second, a listing is a beginning rather than a result. Five profile fields were left empty, the free performance data that the platform returns to a claimed profile were never read, and no follow-up established whether the listings remained accurate. The enterprise also acquires a digital identity on infrastructure it does not control. No measure of customer enquiries, visits or sales was taken, and none is claimed.