ASIATODAY.ID, SAN FRANCISCO – The President of the Republic of Indonesia, Joko Widodo (Jokowi) meet with CEOs from large companies in Silicon Valley at The CEO of the Silicon Valley – Luncheon which was held at the Stanford University Campus, Palo Alto, Thursday, November 16, 2023.
The meeting was part of a series of events on President Joko Widodo’s working visit to Stanford University on the sidelines of the APEC Summit in San Francisco,
During the meeting, the Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia, Airlangga Hartarto, representing President Joko Widodo, delivered a keynote speech and held dialogue and discussions for more than 1 hour with Silicon Valley CEOs.
At the beginning of his speech, Coordinating Minister Airlangga said that “This event was extraordinary because he met with CEOs of Silicon Valley companies, where those present had a market capitalization of $7.3 trillion or the equivalent of around 6 times Indonesia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $1.3 trillion or in second place when compared to the GDP of G20 countries.”
For the record, the largest GDP of the G20 members is the United States, namely $25.46 trillion, followed by China at $17.96 trillion.
Coordinating Minister Airlangga emphasized “Talking about the future means we will discuss two main things, namely those related to digitalization and decarbonization.” We realize that currently the industrial revolution 4.0 has disrupted many economic activities. There is Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotization, ChatGPT which can disrupt human work.
The G20 leaders in the Leaders Declaration New Delhi, India, 9-10 September 2023, also paid special attention to AI to be used responsibly. President Joko Widodo has also said that there is no need to be afraid of AI, because even though there are no regulations yet, AI continues to develop. On the other hand, it is necessary to anticipate by preparing the competencies to become an AI Engineer and Expert as much as possible
The world is also facing a climate change crisis, where every country must take joint responsibility in reducing carbon emissions.
Coordinating Minister Airlangga emphasized “We need to continue collaborating to turn Indonesia into a Global Digital Hub in Asia, and we want to do it in a low-carbon way. The digital economy in Southeast Asia is led by Indonesia, which is growing significantly. Indonesia and ASEAN are very potential markets in developing the digital economy.”
As is known, the total population of ASEAN reaches more than 640 million people and Internet users have reached 480 million people. In 2023, ASEAN’s digital economic value is projected to reach a Gross Merchandise Value of $218 billion, and Indonesia is the largest contributor in ASEAN which will reach around $130 billion in 2025.
As Chair of ASEAN 2023, Indonesia has also been able to strengthen the foundations of the ASEAN economy through several economic priority programs, one of which is accelerating negotiations on the ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA) as a strategy to accelerate digital economic transformation in the region. The growth of ASEAN’s digital economic value is predicted to continue to increase to reach $2 trillion in 2030 with the implementation of DEFA.
“We also believe that Indonesia can become a leader in providing environmentally friendly energy in the region,” said Coordinating Minister Airlangga.
Indonesia is not only rich in important minerals such as nickel, copper, bauxite and silica sand, all of which are needed for battery materials. Indonesia also has significant clean energy potential in terms of hydroelectric, geothermal and solar power, with an estimated potential of 3,600 GW. In this way, Indonesia will be able to become a place for the development of digital technology such as environmentally friendly data centers.
In his closing remarks, Coordinating Minister Airlangga also said that currently Indonesia is also in the accession process to join the OECD, as an effort to accelerate transformation towards a developed country.
“Let’s work together, the Government cannot achieve this alone. We need the support and collaboration of all parties to face various challenges in the future. I hope that this forum can become a catalyst for world economic growth, and become a trigger that encourages you to develop your business and drive the Indonesian economy.”
Silicon Valley CEOs who attended the meeting included Scott Cook (Founder and Chairman of Intuit, Director of eBay and Procter & Gamble), Julia D Hartz (Co-Founder and CEO of Eventbrite), Javier Olivan (COO of Meta, the mastermind behind Facebook’s, WhatsApp), Jeff Williams (COO of Apple Incorporated), Bret Taylor (Silicon Valley AI Entrepreneur; former Co-CEO of Salesforce and former Chairman of Twitter), Drew Houston (Board member of Facebook, co-founder and CEO of Dropbox), Divesh Makan (Founder of ICONIQ Capital, LLC), Tim Dattels (Partner of TPG and Chairman of TPG Asia). And attended by Arun Majundar (dean of Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability), John Hennessy (Chairman of Alphabet the parent company of Google; President Emeritus of Stanford University (2000-2016) and several other figures and company leaders in Silicon Valley. (AT Network)
Check out other news and articles at Google News