Founder

Taman Bacaan Pelangi, Travel Sparks Indonesia and The Nila Tanzil Collection

A children’s literacy advocate with a mission to encourage and nurture children’s interest in reading by providing access to books to children who live in remote areas of Eastern Indonesia through her initiative called “Taman Bacaan Pelangi [Rainbow Reading Gardens]”.  In ten years, she has built 135 children’s libraries across 18 islands, benefitting over 30,000 children and distributing more than 250,000 books, and trained close to 4,000 local teachers in Eastern Indonesia. 

Through her initiatives, she received numerous awards, such as: GlobeAsia’s 99 Most Inspiring Women 2019, Forbes Indonesia’s 10 Inspiring Women 2015, “The Kartini Next Generation 2013: Inspiring Woman in ICT for Community Development” by the Ministry of Communication & Information Technology and Ministry of Woman Empowerment & Child Protection.  The Republic of Indonesia’s National Library also recognized her work and awarded the Nugra Jasadarma Pustaloka 2013 award. 

In 2016, she was also recognized as “10 EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2016” from Ernst & Young.

Nila has published three books titled “The Art of Giving Back” (2018), “Teman Baru Epi” (2018) and “Lembar-Lembar Pelangi” (2016). Apart of her passion in helping children to have access to books and love to read, she loves traveling. She has been to 44 countries in the world, mostly solo traveling. To marry her passion in travel and education, she founded “Travel Sparks”, a social enterprise in travel that carries the spirit of “Travel With A Cause”. Through Travel Sparks, she encourages people to give back to the local community while traveling. The enterprise supports her NGO as the profit goes to Taman Bacaan Pelangi that will enable the organization to provide more access to books to the underprivileged children who live in remote areas of Eastern Indonesia. 

Nila is an Eisenhower Fellow 2018 and an Atlantic Fellow 2016. 

Nila holds a MA degree in European Communication Studies from Universiteit van Amsterdam, The Netherlands.