Institut Teknologi Bandung

Present at the talkshow were Raldi Koester (expert staff in innovation, technology and environment to the Coordinating Minister of Economy), Ahmad Lubis (expert staff to M. Zuhal, former Minister of Research and Technology), and Dwilarso (lecturer in the School of Business and Management, ITB). Moderated by Indy Rahmawati, a TvOne presenter, the talkshow discussed on how to utilize the strength of technology in Indonesia in order to result in the self-sufficiency and the prosperity of the nation.

The program opened with a discussion about Indonesia's inability to be fully autonomous in various sectors and its dependency on other countries. According to Koester, the low innovation and survival rate in Indonesia is one of the reasons this continues to happen. "When other countries are developing the innovative sectors, Indonesia still cannot survive," he explained. Differing from Koester, Dwilarso was concerned with the less-than-commendable education and infrastructure in Indonesia. "Infrastructure based on technology in Indonesia still needs time," said Dwilarso.

The developed nations in the world have an established system in encouraging the utilization of their technology. The perspective in developed nations, for example, position the economy to be developed based on science and technology. Not only that, Indonesia also needs to search for a sector it can excel in. "Finland is great with its Nokia factories, so they have further developed it until it succeeded," said Dwilarso. Even so, Dwilarso did not deny that Indonesia should be able to compete in the economy sector because of the creativity of its people. "Therefore, the economic sector of Indonesia needs to use technology," he explained.

Aside from that, Lubis explained about the importance of the realization of educational research. "Research is very important for the nation's prosperity," he emphasized. Koester added that the key of technology utilization is by producing a high quality workforce, from which will come many entrepreneurs that can contribute to the utilization of technology.

In Need of Entrepreneurs

In this opportunity, all the speakers talked about the importance of young entrepreneurs to create the chance to fully utilize technology. Dwilarso explained that Indonesia only needs 2% of its people to be entrepreneurs to erase unemployment. "15% of first-year SBM ITB students want to become entrepreneurs after graduation. From this, we can see that there is a methodology needed to develop these entrepreneurs," he explained. An entrepreneur needs to study the techniques of doing business well, namely through developing experiences with the right brain, and learning straight from the field.

"Malaysia has been building its infrastructure for 2020 since 25 years ago, which means they are now ready and prepared," explained Lubis. This is the kind of mindset that is needed by Indonesia in order to compete with other countries. "We need an entrepreneurial mindset," he emphasized.

A High Quality Workforce is a Must

At the end of the talk show; all speakers agreed that the workforce is the key to full utilization of technology in Indonesia in order to reach self-sufficiency and prosperity. According to Dwilarso, with a high quality workforce, we can improve the quality of lives around the world. Aside from that, as long as we have a strong workforce, technology and innovation can strengthen each other and speed up the utilization of technology.

"Unfortunately, 52% of the Indonesian populations only have a primary school education," he explained. With such a low education, the development of a good workforce is hard to be done. The creation of new entrepreneurs will also be difficult, therefore making prosperity a far goal. "That is why we need to have good education as the basis, so that we create a high quality workforce able to stand up to this challenge," he said.