Govt to offer 50 thousand Digital Talent scholarships

 The Indonesian Communication and Informatics Ministry will offer 50 thousand Digital Talent scholarships for 2020 to hone skills and boost competitiveness of the country's human resources in the field of information technology and communication.

"This year, we have offered 25 thousand scholarships, and next year, it will be 50 thousand scholarships for students, university students, teachers, and IT volunteers throughout Indonesia," Niken Widiastuti, secretary general of the ministry, stated here on Saturday in her opening remarks during a Communication and Information Technology (TIK) Festival.

The scholarship recipients will gain digital knowledge, such as big data, cybersecurity, and digital business.

"This is an opportunity for high school students, university students, and TIK volunteers to apply for digital scholarships," she stated.

The Digital Talent Scholarship Program is managed by the Communication and Informatics Ministry in cooperation with major state and private Indonesian universities and international technology companies, such as Cisco, Google, and Microsoft.

Furthermore, the ministry provides scholarships on informatics for undergraduates and postgraduates.

"For this scholarship, the Communication and Informatics Ministry has sent 200 scholarship recipients to various foreign universities, such as in the United States, Europe, and other countries," she noted.

She expressed hope that several students, teachers, and TIK volunteers would apply for scholarships. She believed that by possessing digital talent, they would be able to work in various technology companies, she stated.

"This is an opportunity for you to apply for these scholarship programs," she appealed.

In the meantime, Dr Pratama Persadha, academician at the University of Gadjah Mada (UGM), recently noted that cybersecurity should become a priority on the Indonesian government’s agenda while entering the Internet of things (IoT)-based Industry 4.0 era.

"Cybersecurity is a priority issue in the current digital era," Persadha, former acting director of signal security of the National Cyber and Crypto Agency (BSSN), informed Antara in Semarang recently while commenting on a statement made by Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto earlier.

At a hearing with Commission I of the House of Representatives (DPR) in Jakarta on Monday, Subianto affirmed that the Defense Ministry along with the Education and Culture Ministry will prepare human resources as reserve components.

The presence of civilians as defense reserve components is deemed necessary to support the main component -- the military/TNI -- or other components.

"One of the needed reserve components is educated staff or human resources in the field of cybersecurity," the chairman of the Communication and Information System Security Research Center (CISSReC) stated.

A survey by Roberts Walters in April 2019 showed that at the global and domestic scale, a wide gap existed between cyber defense human resource demands and preparedness, both for the government institutions and private sector.

A total of 400 people in Southeast Asia participated in the survey, exposing the global technology talent crisis. The difficulty level in finding technical talent stood at 7 on a scale of 1 to 10.

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Reporter: Aprionis, Fardah
Editor: Rahmad Nasution