A Team Of 5 Malaysians Have Set Up This Website To Help You #PulangMengundi
The website links voters seeking transport to their constituencies on voting day with suitable carpool drivers and donors.
By Katrina Khairul Azman — 16 Apr 2018, 02:30 PM
A group of Malaysians who have never met have collaborated to aid those in need of help to travel to their constituencies for GE14.
With their website www.pulangmengundi.com, the team of strangers have created a platform dedicated to connect people who wish to offer or receive help through carpool or cash subsidies.
The team of five consists of Gan Sue Ling, Wong You Jing, Timothy Teoh, Andrew Loh Zhu An, and Grace Look.
Timothy, who was working on the idea with Grace and Andrew, had bought the pulangmengundi.com domain that Sue Ling and You Jing were planning to buy. After getting in touch, the two groups formed a WhatsApp group to build upon their shared idea together.
"This is a virtual collaboration at its best," Sue Ling, who is in charge of UX (user experience design), told SAYS.
After just 36 hours since launching the website on Friday, 13 April, more than 300 drivers have offered carpool rides, while donations of up to RM4,400 have been collected to aid close to 400 voters.
"I feel like deep down, Malaysians still possess a Sekampung Spirit to unite despite our differences – especially when it comes to things like helping fellow Malaysians to go home to vote," said Sue Ling.
"I believe that voting is a right that needs to be exercised and we should help in any way to enable this to happen," she added.
While there are already initiatives with the same common goal of getting Malaysians to vote, the Pulang Mengundi website has made it even easier to connect those who need help with those willing to help:
2. Potential donors are empowered to determine who they want to fund based on information such as where they need to travel to in order to vote.
3. Carpool drivers and riders can easily search the database to find the users that they 'match' with, in terms of starting point and final destination. Gender preferences can also be established.
4. Future features that are currently being worked on include versions of the website in Bahasa Malaysia and Chinese, in the spirit of increasing outreach and to be inclusive of all Malaysians.
5. As part of their goal to collaborate with all GE14 initiatives, the team behind the website are in a strategic partnership with several parallel movements such as @CarpoolGE14, @Pulang_Mengundi, and Balik Undi Rabu.
None of the Pulang Mengundi team members are receiving funding from any political party or NGO. Every cent contributed to starting up and maintaining the website has been out-of-pocket.
"We're lean, everyone has day jobs, we work during lunch, and after work up to 3-5am. We are so exhausted," said Sue Ling.
She also explained that they have programmers at a design company to thank for offering to do their design for free.
