An announcement
made by the Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM)
highlighted how the Indonesian Government is strengthening the digital industry
economy by encouraging the youth to go into digital business.
Indonesian Government is currently
strengthening the digital industry economy by encouraging the young people to
go into digital business and one of the ways is by the 1,000 Start-up Business
movement that is expected to reduce economic gap and gini ratio index. With the theme, “Networking of 1,000
Digital Start-ups,” the event took place in Yogyakarta on19 May 2018.
Section Head of Technology and Informatics
Infrastructure in the Ministry of
Communication and Information Technology, Mr Sonny Hendra Sudaryana, ST., M.MT,
said the new start-ups are expected to create equality, financial inclusion,
and digitalisation.
Efforts that can raise the prosperity of
the impoverished people are needed to lessen the gap bet ween the rich and the
poor. This is because the wide gap between the two classes resulted in political
and economic unstable conditions and social conflicts.
“We hope the new start-ups will help reduce
the gap among society, especially to prevent social conflicts that have often
emerged,” he said.
He cited Go-Jek
as an example of a successful digital technology start-up, which achieved
economic sharing and manpower digitalisation.
“Go-Jek has helped reduced the unemployment
level and increased the average income of drivers and SMEs,” he said.
He also mentioned Tokopedia and other online SMES that
achieved what Go-Jek has.
“Now, together, we can resolve the problem
of how to increase the income of SMEs through online sales,” he encouraged the
people at the event.
Mr Fachry Bafadal, co-founder of a seamless chat commerce solution, inspired
the student participants who attended the seminar not to give up easily. He
said, “Never blame the situation because it can provide us lessons in our
journey.”
He suggested that start-up founders should
avoid using their egos when developing a product and platform. Instead, create
innovations according to the demand of the market. He explained, ”Our ego can
destroy our products especially when we do not listen to the market. Celebrate
a failure instead.”
Mr Sebastian Alex Dharmawangsa, founder of a
horticulturist start-up, said the initial step in digital business development
is strengthening cooperation between team members. His start-up was established
after the UGM Innovative Academy.
He said that as high as 65% of start-ups
have stopped growing because of internal problems. The team members were
unaware of the delineation of roles and duties of each member.
“It’s important to know the character and
job description of each member in order to create an effective team,” he said.