US-based giant Google has launched on Wednesday an education program for Indonesian developers, which will be especially focused on machine learning.
The program, called Bangkit, is developed in collaboration with ride-hailing company Gojek, e-commerce unicorn Tokopedia, and travel tech unicorn Traveloka. It promises to train talents who want to learn the fundamentals of machine learning and enhance their potential to later work for major Indonesian tech companies and startups.
Bangkit is a blended (online and offline) program that spans over six months, including workshops to be held in four major Indonesian cities such as Jakarta, Bandung, Denpasar, Yogyakarta, over seven weekends. The application is limited to 300 students from all over Indonesia.
“With the initiative, we encourage all developers across Indonesia to increase their technical skills and soft skills, so they can contribute to speeding up the digital economy growth in Indonesia,” Randy Jusuf, managing director at Google Indonesia said in the Google for Indonesia conference held in Jakarta on Wednesday.
Google said that it has trained 1.4 million Indonesian in digital basics and business tools through its programs including Gapura Digital and Women Will.
Based on the 2019 Google-Temasek-Bain&Co report, Indonesia’s internet economy has more than quadrupled in size since 2015, and is estimated at USD 40 billion in 2019. As the largest and fastest-growing internet economy in Southeast Asia, is predicted to be worth USD 130 billion by 2025. However, digital talent shortfall is one of the main issues that been challenged by digital startups and big companies in Indonesia.