An interview with: Rani Hariga from adirani Digital Solutions

Maharani Hariga moved to Lancaster for her Masters degree in E-Business & Innovation (now called MSc Digital Business, Innovation & Management). Falling in love with the city, she has stayed here ever since and made it the home of her businesses. 

Rani is the co-founder of two tech businesses, adirani Digital Solutions and Garchi UK. She is also the host of the Asian Fempreneur podcast, a certified spiritual life coach, and she takes part in several brilliant tech initiatives. We recently caught up with Rani to discuss her holistic approach to the world of tech and hear her words of wisdom for growing a successful tech business in Lancashire.

It’s lovely to speak with you Rani. To start, please can you share more about yourself and your background?

Rani: My name is Rani. I'm originally from Indonesia and I went to the UK in 2017 for a Master's in E-Business & Innovation at Lancaster University. Before that, I did an undergrad in Japan where I did social science — things like media and culture, culture anthropology, and international relations, all those Humanities. Then I did four years of work back in Indonesia before moving to the UK. 

Since then, we have started two startups. One is called Garchi UK and the other is adirani Digital Solutions. And I’m also a certified spiritual life coach.

That’s really cool. It seems a lot of people who study at Lancaster tend to stay or gravitate back to Lancaster.

Can you tell me more about your experience?

Rani: I came from big cities, like Jakarta is a capital city. So, I have a taste of that.  When I was looking to study abroad, I wanted something that's more local. I had never heard of Lancaster before but after looking at it, I thought this sounds like my kind of place. 

Me and my business partner, we tried working from Manchester at one point of time for around six months. Yes, it's nice to go to the city where things are happening but then again it feels complex because there's so many options and so many people. Don’t get me wrong, I love people. But, Lancaster felt more simple. We have the essentials but if you want more you can just go somewhere else for that. 

Does your background in social sciences help you in what you do today with tech?

Rani: Yes, I would say so but not in a direct way. It’s more like a background process of trying to understand where's this person coming from and rather than thinking “oh, okay because so and so is saying this then that must be the fact”, having that critical thinking process of this is what this person is saying so let's see if other people understand it or experience it the same way or not. Like, let’s see if this is true or is it just one person’s feeling.

Having an intercultural experience also helps, especially when working with people from different nationalities and backgrounds. Majority of our staff members are from South Asia. While I keep on learning on best practices and on how to be more inclusive, my experience in Japan and understanding of social science definitely laid the foundation.  

You run Tech Lunches at Fraser House Hub. How did they come around?

Rani: The Tech Lunches are the brainchild of my business partner Aditya Kadam and we host them pretty much every Thursday. 

It actually started as a Coffee with Coders in the morning where people like developers and coders could get together to talk about coding-related stuff and the type of projects that they do.

Then, when Rory started in Fraser House Hub we changed it to lunchtime as he thought it’d gain more attention. So, we have 30 minutes at lunch where people can share their knowledge or share what they’ve been working on. It’s not super structured. It’s more like a mini TedTalks where people can exchange their knowledge and exchange their perspective of tech. 

We’ve started to diversify the topic so it’s not just about hard coding but anything related with digital and tech startups, and even the softer-side of things. One time, I was speaking about how there’s a point to playing video games and it’s not all about violence or all the negative association.

They sound great. What do you love about running the Tech Lunches?

Rani: For me, personally, they have become like a practice ground where you can share your own insights in a safe environment. 

For the past two years now, we have asked people if they want to speak at the Tech Lunches. There are people who are like “yeah sure, I can talk about this”.

But there are people who are hesitant to speak, especially women and university students or people who have just graduated. Even though I have seen them talking about that particular topic and I know they are passionate about it.

It takes a bit of persuasion because they think “no, I can’t talk” and there’s imposter syndrome coming in. So, what I like is when I can gently push them like “you can do it. Because I’ve seen you. It’s just 30 minutes.” When they’ve actually done it and you can see from their face that they’re glad they did it, that’s a proud and happy moment for me.

Speaking of amplifying the voices of women. Can you tell me more about your podcast, Asian Fempreneur?

Rani: I started the Asian Fempreneur podcast back in 2020. That was the height of the Black Lives Matter movement and when we were all in lockdown. I was wondering what were some things that were meaningful that we could do. So, I thought it would be good to hear stories of women of Asian heritage on their entrepreneurial journeys. 

Most of the time, and I don’t want to generalise, but where I come from in Indonesia the typical journey for Asian women is you go to school, you go to university, then get a job, get married, have children, and that’s life for you. There are places where there are different ways to do things. So, I wanted to elevate the stories of those who are doing that to inspire the next generation of Asian women that there is an alternative way of doing things. Entrepreneurship is possible.

From your learnings, experiences, and the journeys of the people you speak to on the podcast, is there anything you think the tech industry can do better to support, include, and elevate Asian women in tech?

Rani: I think this brings us back to the whole issue of inclusion and diversity. 

Here I am in the UK and, of course, people speak English and the mindset is predominantly the British male mindset. I’m not saying this is just in the UK. I feel like it’s applicable elsewhere where there’s a majority single mindset dominating the tech industry of that place.

I feel awareness and understanding that there are other voices and other mindsets that you may not have considered, because you’re so used to your way of thinking, that could bring value to the project, company, or the industry itself.

There was one book I read — Rebel Ideas: The power of diverse thinking. The premise is that the CIA are well known for recruiting people who are from the same background and demographic like white males of a certain age group. So, when there’s an investigation, they all think the same. They don’t consider other perspectives. So, if there’s a suspect or a victim from a different background, they will quickly judge them as being bad, just because it’s different to what they do.

So, you are the co-owner of adirani DS and Garchi UK. Can you tell me more about both of those?

Rani: We started initially with Garchi UK. It started more as a homemade food aggregator platform in Lancaster. We pivoted many times, especially during the pandemic, to the point that now it’s completely Tech Solutions like a software or SaaS product. So, that’s what Garchi essentially is. That’s our OG company.

Then, during 2021, we thought let’s try something else that’s kind of what we are already doing. So, at the time, my business partner had been freelancing and working on client projects. So, we thought let’s make it more official by branding it as a tech consultant. We thought of making it more like a digital doctor. You know, like where people have issues or queries about their tech in their own business and then, as a doctor, we can say what happened and consult.

Since then, adirani DS has also evolved. We don’t just do consultancy. We are branching out. We have our online courses, we do bootcamp training, and we’ve been partnering with Scale-ability on Code Lancashire. My business partner delivers the tech side of things and I deliver workshops on the employability things and coaching the learners.

In both businesses you’ve gone through a lot of pivoting and evolution. Would you say that the ability to pivot and evolve is critical for tech businesses?

Rani: The landscape always changes in tech. I came from a family business background. When our parents or our grandparents started a business it was simple. They just open the shop, pick a product (or several), and they just do that for the rest of their life. They didn’t need to do anything else because there would be customers coming in anyway.

But with tech the landscape keeps changing and evolving. You can’t just open a shop, sit down and wait for customers to come. That doesn’t work. It’s much more complex. And you can feel that. This is like going into the unknowns.

Before you go, do you have any final words of wisdom you want to share with other tech founders or enthusiasts in Lancashire?

Rani: Community is really important. We started after we graduated from university. We didn’t know people in Lancaster. Our surrounding was just Lancaster University. So, I made a point of “we need a community here… But who? Where?”. 

We tried going to Manchester but because we didn’t know anyone the people who spoke to us were just trying to sell to us.

When Rory started the second iteration of Fraser House, I thought “this is where we want to be”. We have been here ever since. I cannot emphasise more the importance of community there.

And, I also want to say that when it comes to tech it can be so easy to keep rolling and thinking “I need to do this. I need to do that”. 

Sometimes, we forget to stop and take a pause to see if this is actually what we want to do or not. 

It’s not just tech. You can apply this to anything else. Just because tech is the current in-job, it pays more and people think “I want to learn coding because then I can get a higher salary, I can get a better job, better lifestyle”. That’s great but why? What makes you want all of those? And if you know your why, you know if a career in coding or tech is suitable for you or not.

That’s the question I would invite you to ask yourself.

Final thoughts — Be curious, ask questions, and find your community

That was a truly insightful interview with Rani, hearing her holistic approach to tech and her encouragement to reassess your goals and purpose — whether that’s by pivoting and evolving or taking time to pause and think. 

If you want to keep up to date with Rani’s journey, you can find her on Instagram or LinkedIn. You can also follow her companies, adirani Digital Solutions and Garchi UK on LinkedIn to stay in the loop on any company updates. Be sure to check out the Asian Fempreneur podcast too!

Fraser House Hub members can join the weekly Tech Lunches every Thursday from 12:30pm to 1pm for a safe, supportive mini “TED Talks”-esque catch up for all things tech.