/ The social app that starts with the people you already know is going campus to campus in Indonesia
The social app that starts with the people you already know is going campus to campus in Indonesia
KUALA LUMPUR: Sanct Social, a social app for family and close friends, set up at its first university campus on Saturday (Oct 31), the closing day of the ARCHIWEEK 4.0 exhibition at Universitas Multimedia Nusantara (UMN) in Tangerang, Indonesia, its third in-person event in seven weeks since the app launched.
The app is now available to Malaysians as a free download on the App Store, in Bahasa Melayu, English, Bahasa Indonesia and Hindi, with no advertisements. It is on iPhone now; the Android version is not ready yet.
The campus followed a booth at the Tech in Asia Conference in Singapore in September and a school tournament in Jakarta in October. Five weeks after launch, the company said, more than 1,000 people are on the platform and the App Store listing covers 12 countries since widening in October.
What Malaysians get
Sanct Social is for the people a user already knows: family and close friends. First friends are added by meeting in person and scanning each other's QR code, so every circle is made of people the user actually knows, and what is shared stays within that circle. There is a virtual room where family and friends meet when they are apart and talk about their day, and a small companion, Sancty, who is there when the user needs company. It is free, with no advertisements.
For a family spread between Johor Bahru, Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Singapore, the company said, one person starts and brings the next: a daughter at university adds her mother on the next balik kampung, and the family has one room in the app from then on.
What the campus table is
The company said the table needs no stage: one person from the team, one table, one day. Visitors come with a friend, sign up side by side, and leave with one friend already in the app. At UMN, those who arrived alone usually went to find a classmate and came back, and the table stayed busy until the exhibition closed. Each event is filmed and the recap goes on the company's YouTube channel, where the students share it on.
"We bring the same thing to every event, in Singapore, in Jakarta and now on a campus: one person, one table, and people who come with a friend. Nobody signs up with a stranger, because that is not how the app works either," Sanct Social founder Sion Abednego said in a statement.
He said the format had been used at the Tech in Asia Conference in Singapore on Sept 15 and 16 and at Tar2Cup at SMA Tarakanita 2 in Jakarta on Oct 18, and that the next campuses in Indonesia were being lined up.
"For Malaysians the app is in Bahasa Melayu from day one, it is free, and there are no advertisements. What we ask is simple: start with one person who matters to you. That is how every circle on Sanct Social begins, whether you are in Tangerang or in Kuala Lumpur," he added.
Where it has been
Sanct Social launched on the App Store in Singapore on Sept 28 and in Malaysia and Indonesia on Sept 30. Since then the table has been to Singapore (Tech in Asia Conference 2026, Sands Expo and Convention Centre, Sept 15 and 16), Jakarta (Tar2Cup, SMA Tarakanita 2, Oct 18) and Tangerang (ARCHIWEEK 4.0, Universitas Multimedia Nusantara, Oct 31). More than 200 media outlets across Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore have carried the company's stories since September.
ARCHIWEEK 4.0 is an art and creation exhibition organised by students of Universitas Multimedia Nusantara on the UMN campus in Tangerang. Sanct Social was invited for the closing day and thanked the committee and the university.
Pricing and availability
Sanct Social is a free download with no advertisements on the Apple App Store in Malaysia and eleven more countries, in Bahasa Melayu, English, Bahasa Indonesia and Hindi. The Android version is not ready yet. More than a thousand people are already on the platform.
For more information and to download the app, visit https://sanct.social
