The Ministry of Communication and Informatics has officially opened the 2022 Digital Talent Scholarship and Digital Leadership Academy programs, which are available to the public free of charge.
"The intensification of digital transformation has implications for the increasing need for digital talents. These digital talents will be the main navigators driving the digital ecosystem," Minister of Communication and Informatics, Johnny G. Plate, said in a welcoming video played at the National Digital Talent Program launch event in Yogyakarta on Tuesday.
The Digital Talent Scholarship and the Digital Leadership Academy are annual programs that the Ministry of Communication and Informatics has offered for the past few years. For 2022, the ministry has allotted a quota of 200 thousand seats for technical training, including in cloud computing, Big Data, artificial intelligence (AI), and cyber security.
This year, seven academies will offer the Digital Talent Scholarship program—the Vocational School Graduate Academy, Government Transformation Academy, Digital Entrepreneurship Academy, Professional Academy, Thematic Academy, Fresh Graduate Academy, and Talent Scouting.
Meanwhile, the Digital Leadership Academy program will be offered to 550 stakeholders in the digital sector—from the government as well as the private sector.
For the program, the ministry has collaborated with eight foreign universities, including Tsinghua University, Harvard Kennedy School, Oxford University, and the National University of Singapore.
The programs are aimed at creating digital talents in Indonesia to address the gap between the availability of digital talents and the need for such talents, both nationally and in the Asia-Pacific region.
The minister noted that nationally, at least 50 percent of talents have basic and intermediate digital skills. However, there are less than 1 percent digital talents with advanced skills.
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Meanwhile, in the Asia-Pacific region, more than 50 percent of CEOs are facing trouble recruiting digital talents with the required skills. The Asia-Pacific is projected to experience a deficit of around 47 million digital talents by 2030.
"Of course, this gap must be addressed seriously. Moreover, we want to create a competitive Indonesia in the global arena," Plate said.
In terms of potential, Indonesia has a big potential as the country has thousands of startup companies and even boasts a decacorn and eight unicorns.
"Visionary thinking is crucial so that we not only become a market, but also a major player, both at the regional and global levels," the minister remarked.
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