“20 BY 12” PROJECT SEEKS HUGE LEAP IN BROADBAND FOR INDONESIA
(Jakarta, February 27, 2008) Determined to put an end to the high cost and slow pace of broadband penetration, a powerful coalition of business, academic and government leaders has formed with the intension of catapulting Indonesia into a “broadband-enabled society”.
Using the rallying cry “20 by 12” a coalition called Investor Group Against Digital Divide (IGADD) will formulate a sustainable business model for linking 20% of Indonesian citizens to high speed internet by the year 2012.
At March 5, Indonesia’s Minister of Communications and Informatics (Kominfo), Prof. Dr. Ir. Muhammad Nuh, DEA, will turn to Dr. Ing. Ilham Akbar Habibie, chairman of IGADD in Indonesia with a request: to formulate a plan for mobilize investments that bring “meaningful broadband” to 50 million Indonesians in four years, including those at the bottom of the pyramid.
Minister Nuh and Ilham Habibie signed Memorandum of Understanding, establishing a strategic partnership with IGADD on February 6, 2008.
“One of the biggest themes for developing countries in the past decade has been how to benefit low-income populations with digital technology, but little progress has been made”, said Craig Warren Smith, a former Harvard professor, who founded IGADD as an international organization several years ago and is now assisting its emergence in Indonesia.
“By showing how to use broadband to bring the ‘user revolution’ to the masses in emerging markets, Indonesia may will become the world’s pacesetter in closing Digital Divide”, he added.
IGADD coalition, based at The Habibie Center, includes Institute of Technology Bandung (ITB), which will introduce IGADD to Indonesia’s higher education sector at a Rectors Forum, March 18. Another founding partner is the international website, DigitalDivide.org, which will develop an interactive web community in Bahasa Indonesia to activate the participation of Indonesian university students and alumni in IGADD’s formulations.
“Clearly the conditions are in place to turn Indonesia’s huge leap in cell phone penetration into a path to high-speed internet that could bring jobs and learning to millions of Indonesians", said Arjun Trivedi, President Director of PT.Nokia Siemens Network Indonesia.
“Having emerged from the academic and business sectors, IGADD is close enough to investors to interact with them without imposing biases of its own”, said Dr. Armein Langi of Institute of Technology Bandung, which is one of the IGADD organizers.
On February 14, a seminar attended by Kominfo's directors established the mandate to be pursued by IGADD. It called for a “broadband ecosystem” distributed between high, medium and low ends of the population, reinforced by internet applications that empower Indonesians. The IGADD coalition intends to compile this research into a report to Kominfo in May of this year, followed by a seminar that links corporate executives with ministers of the Republic of Indonesia.
“We will be developing financial formulas. But making sure broadband becomes a tool for Indonesians' own empowerment is the goal of our strategic alliance with the ministry", said Ilham Habibie.
IGADD is not relying on consultations from investors alone to formulate its plans but engaging universities. It is using the web itself to engage Indonesian citizens, especially students with IT skills located in domestic and foreign universities. In academic seminars planned through this year, they will be asked to contribute to IGADD’s formulations.
On March 18, the ITB Rector Prof. Dr. Djoko Santoso will convene a number of other Indonesian rectors in Bandung to consider their role in IGADD's plans to close digital divide. Later, the various university clubs with alumni chapters in Jakarta, such as those of Harvard, MIT and University of Chicago, will take steps to bring their almae mater into IGADD’s formulations. Through DigitalDivide.org's portal, students and alumni from all these institutions will be invited to weigh on the critical choices regarding how Indonesia could be transformed into a broadband-enabled society.
“One of the biggest themes for governments in the past decade has been how to close the Digital Divide. Since then, the world has been looking for a location that shows how market forces could be harnessed to support human potential. Perhaps Indonesia will be that place”, said Professor Smith.
