Digital Economy: Virtual Bridge Connecting the Archipelago

Abstraksi

The fourth industrial revolution, referred as the digital era, arrived with the ability to reshape almost every aspect of our life globally, including economy. Indonesia, as one of emerging market countries (EMCs), responds positively to this challenge. Government expects digital economy will become the backbone of Indonesia in the upcoming years. The target is to be the biggest digital economy in South-East Asia by 2020. On the light side, studies show that Indonesia is a huge market. Revenue of e-commerce in Indonesia amounted to USD 6 billion in 2016 and expected to grow approximately 170% by the end of 2020. In addition, Indonesians who already connected to the internet are very tech-savvy. On the other side, Indonesia’s technology infrastructure is still lag behind its peer countries. Indonesia's ICT development index is ranked 111 of 176 countries in 2016 and still behind neighbor countries like Malaysia (63) and Philippine (101). Furthermore, digital infrastructure across Indonesia is unequal. The ICT development in Papua, North Sulawesi, and North Kalimantan are far behind Jakarta. This article examines what we can learn from tech-rising countries like China, India, and Rwanda. This comparative study shows that distributing digital infrastructure more evenly and creating young entrepreneur across the archipelago are fundamental keys to tackle regional disparity. Therefore, we can transform technology driven economy into a bridge that connects, not walls that widens the gap.