Yogyakarta, 17 May 2022
- Minister of Communications and Informatics Johnny G. Plate stated that Indonesia continues to pursue national digital transformation in various aspects of life. According to him, the intensification of digital transformation will lead to the increasing need for digital talents.
"These digital talents will become the main navigators who drive the digital ecosystem. Currently, Indonesia needs at least 600 thousand digital talents every year," he said in the Grand Launching of the National Digital Talent Program 2022, broadcast live from the Marriott Hotel Yogyakarta, Tuesday (May 17).
The Minister explained that in the midst of the significant increase of digital talent demand, there is a gap between digital talent and job opportunities. He pointed out that in the Asia Pacific region, more than 50% of CEOs found it difficult to recruit digital talent of the specific skills required.
"It is projected that by 2030 there will be a shortage of 47 million digital talents in the region. At the national level, it is recorded that at least 50% of our workforce only has basic and intermediate level digital skills. Whereas those with advanced digital skills represent less than 1% of our workforce," he explained.
According to the Minister, we must take digital talent gap seriously, considering Indonesia's aspiration to become a competitive nation in the global arena. Nevertheless, apart from considering digital talent demand as a challenge, Indonesia also needs to consider its current digital potential.
"Indonesia is home to 2,229 startups or the fifth largest in the world. We also have one decacorn startup and 8 unicorn startups," he explained.
In addition, the potential valuation of Indonesia's digital economy is also projected to reach 4,531 trillion rupiah or equivalent to 315.5 billion US dollars in 2030. Therefore, the Minister of Communications and Informatics emphasized that Indonesia, as a big nation, have to promote optimism.
"We should be optimistic in optimizing our potential, we must be able to become a generation of initiators, inventors, and innovators who can take advantage of the opportunities of the digital era for the development of our nation," he said.
Strengthening the Synergy
According to Johnny, it is important to have a visionary way of thinking so that Indonesia would not only serve as a market, but also become a major player in contestations at the regional and global levels. Seeing this opportunity, the Ministry of Communications and Informatics provided the Digital Talent Scholarship and Digital Leadership Academy programs as concrete initiatives to accelerate the development of national digital talent.
"This year, the Digital Talent Scholarship program will provide technical digital training for 200 thousand participants on themes related to cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, and programming," he said.
The program is divided into seven academies which include the Vocational School Graduate Academy, Government Transformation Academy, Digital Entrepreneurship Academy, Professional Academy, Thematic Academy, Fresh Graduate Academy, and Talent Scouting Academy.
Playing a role in a triplehelix implementation, the Digital Talent Scholarship program is implemented in collaboration with well-known universities in Indonesia as well as local and global technology companies such as Alibaba, AWS, Cisco, Google, Red Hat, Oracle, Microsoft, Mastercard, EC-Council, Huawei, Progate, Skilvul, DQLab, MyEduSolve, Dicoding, Rakamin, Teknoblox, Hellomotion, Binar Academy, Hacktiv8, Agate, Indobot, Tempo, Gojek, Tokopedia, and Techready Community.
Through the Digital Leadership Academy program, the Ministry will provide advanced digital trainings for 550 public and private sector leaders in collaboration with eight world-renowned universities.
"Including Harvard Kennedy School, Oxford University, National University of Singapore, Tsinghua University, Cornell University, Imperial College London, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Cambridge," Johnny elaborated.
The Minister of Communications and Informatics emphasized that the national digital talent development program is a major program that requires cross-institutional collaboration.
"Let's make the momentum of the Grand Launching of the National Digital Talent Program 2022 a shared spirit to work together to create superior digital talent towards a more connected Indonesia; more digital, more advanced," he explained.
