President Jokowi: Take Advantage of Global Platforms, Hire Local Practitioners

President Jokowi delivers a speech at the opening of the 2017 Indonesia Digital Byte, at Ritz Carlton Hotel, Pacific Place, Jakarta, Thursday (28/9) morning. (Photo: JAY/PR)

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo reminded digital practitioners in Indonesia not to create a start-up like the existing ones such as Alibaba or Google. According to the President, this will only waste time and energy. It is better to take advantage of the existing ones and hire local practitioners.

“Take advantage of it, just use the existing ones. Take advantage of global platforms such as Alibaba, Google, Facebook, Microsoft,” President Jokowi said when opening the 2017 Indonesia Digital Byte, at Ritz Carlton Hotel, Pacific Place, Jakarta, Thursday (28/9) morning.

The President stressed that instead we should utilize innovations such as Alibaba, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Twitter and others. The President believes that countries that managed to utilize innovations have higher competitiveness. Thus, economic growth will also be higher.

However, the President asserted that this does not mean we have to surrender to the global giants on the internet. The President stressed that in the digital economy, great opportunities are still available on the internet world for local players.

The President said that there is a saying: internet means the dead of distance but not the dead of location. The Internet does make no distance, but does not mean that the location becomes unimportant. “The location or local characteristic is still very meaningful and instrumental,” the President said.

Create Local Products

President Jokowi encourages those who have an interest in digital business to create a truly local service or product that embraces Indonesian local characteristics. “For example, I heard there is e-commerce startup that sells rujak (sliced fruits with spicy peanut sauce) online. People from all over the world order rujak,” the President said.

The President added that we can help make international products become local such as Amazon, Microsoft, Alibaba, Lazada, Tokopedia, in which Alibaba finally invested in Indonesia by buying Lazada and Tokopedia shares.

For the time being, the President affirmed that our strength is on the local product. However, because Indonesia is a big country and market, the local product is also big. “As time goes by, as our e-commerce companies continue to grow, we will also definitely go regional and finally will Go-Global. Those are the stages,” the President said.

The opening of 2017 Indonesia Digital Byte was attended by Minister of State Secretary Pratikno, Head of Creative Economic Agency (Bekraf) Triawan Munaf, Swedish Ambassador, and digital practitioners in Indonesia. (RMI/JAY/ES) (MUR/YM/Naster).