State Minister, Prof. Dr. Pratikno, M.Soc.Sc., has asked higher learning institutions to find young learners to do creative and innovative things amidst digital technology era. In his opinion, the young people cannot stay put by just being users of technology but should do technology disruption to resolve Indonesia’s social and economic problems.
"Indonesia needs great businessmen that can resolve social and economic problems, becoming problem solvers," said Minister Pratikno in a sharing session hosted by Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at Santika Hotel Yogyakarta on Thursday (25/1).
The Minister said the great change in the industry had made all governments around the world to think hard and to balance their economic growth. Change in technology disruption, said the Minister, might generate new types of jobs but remove old ones, too. “Once an innovation is made, jobs would come and go,” he said.
Minister Pratikno pointed out the example of Nadiem Anwar Makarim, founder of online transportation, Go-Jek, whose examples could be followed by other young people. According to the Minister, Nadiem was one of the young people having succeeded to do technology disruption. "Nadiem told me that at Go-Jek they always do internal disruption first before other people do it,” he said.
He said, despite graduating from international relations study, Nadiem Makarim’s care for social problems had inspired him to do things that could solve social problems, hence the birth of Go-jek. What Nadiem had done, according to the Minister, needed to be appreciated. The value of brand of Go-Jek is higher than that of Indonesia’s biggest taxi services, even higher than those of state owned companies.
Such industrial revolution cannot just be understood by higher learning, but they need to work hard to find smart young learners to do disruptions. “Higher learning needs to anticipate this, our human resource needs to be inspired and don’t get left behind,” said Minister Pratikno.