JAKARTA: President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has asked Facebook and Google for their support for Indonesia’s goals of more technopreneurs and a digital economy worth billions of US dollars.
Jokowi and Indonesian delegates visited Silicon Valley in San Francisco, the US, on Wednesday to meet with a number of technology companies.
In a meeting with Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of social networking giant Facebook, Jokowi welcomed Facebook’s contribution to the development of the digital economy and digital culture in Indonesia.
“I hope Facebook and Indonesia can work hand in hand in Indonesia’s efforts to achieve the vision of becoming the biggest digital economy in Southeast Asia,” the President said in a press statement on Thursday.
Indonesia’s vision of the digital economy includes potential value of $130 billion and the birth of 1,000 technopreneurs by 2020.
Jokowi expressed similar hopes to Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
“We hope Google can educate our information technology developers,” he said while visiting Googleplex in Silicon Valley.
Jokowi explained to the two digital giants that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) played a major role in Indonesia’s digital economy, leading the government to prepare an action plan to accelerate digital access for SMEs.
Furthermore, he said, Indonesia had issued a number of policies to reach the goal in 2020 such as an e-commerce roadmap,economic packages and greater access to financial support for SMEs and IT-based companies.
Digitalization was very important, Jokowi asserted, especially as a support system in a country like Indonesia with 252 million people spread across a sprawling archipelago of thousands of islands.
During the visit to the Googleplex, Jokowi and First Lady Iriana met with 39 IndoGooglers, Indonesian citizens who work at Google.
The Indonesian delegation also witnessed the simulation of Google projects such as Google Apps and Google Loon.
