Upskilling Indonesia for the AWS Jakarta region

Tech giants, startups, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and learning institutions are adopting technology across the country to thrive. And as Indonesia’s middle class grows, so will the adoption of cloud technology. All Indonesians, from the small street vendors, Gojek riders to tech unicorn CEOs, are benefiting from this migration to the cloud. And the launch of the AWS Jakarta Region will only accelerate Indonesia’s digital transformation.

While going digital is helping to drive Indonesia’s economy, meeting the demand for the skills needed to sustain growth is a challenge. A recent study found that Indonesia will need 110 million new digitally skilled workers by 2025. And while AWS has already trained over 200,000 individuals in Indonesia with cloud skills, bringing these skills to the 17,000 islands of Indonesia is a hurdle that requires collaboration from both the private sector and government to clear.

AWS has already taken steps to drive the collaboration forward across the private and public sectors to help address Indonesia’s shortage of skilled workers. Training needs to be delivered to every corner of Indonesia, and the tools needed to practice digital skills must follow.

To assist the general public, AWS offers more than 150 free, on-demand digital training courses in Bahasa Indonesia. All learners can take advantage of these free trainings, and the content covers a wide variety of skill levels and topics. Indonesian learners can browse our library and choose from fundamental, intermediate, and advanced training to build cloud knowledge on topics like cloud essentials, security, machine learning, data analytics, and Internet of Things. Our most popular digital training course, AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials, gives learners who are new to the cloud a six-hour overview of AWS Cloud concepts, including AWS cloud services, security, architecture, pricing, and support.

Organizations that are looking to upskill their staff can take advantage of virtual instructor-led training classes taught live by a local expert instructor in Bahasa Indonesia. The courses are taught at all levels from foundational to expert and include best practices using a mix of presentation, discussion, demonstration, and hands-on labs.

We are also actively upskilling workers of the future through region-specific initiatives. Laptops for Builders, an AWS initiative unique to Indonesia, is a complimentary program that teaches high school and vocational students about cloud fundamentals in Bahasa Indonesia. We are training instructors at local organizations to deliver a cloud education program and donating laptops to support learning infrastructure. These trained instructors can then deliver training and laptops to schools across the country. As part of this initiative, we are working with one of the largest Muslim institutions in Indonesia, Nahdatul Ulama, and their network of high schools and vocational high schools across the country, to bring digital skills to students.

And we’re not stopping there. We are also supporting the Dicoding Developer Academy, a tech-education start-up in West Java, on a cloud and back-end developer scholarship program. This program, offered free to the first 100,000 learners nationwide, includes a comprehensive back-end development curriculum, localized in Bahasa Indonesia, to provide an easily accessible learning journey designed for Indonesian developers.

We are also collaborating with government organizations, such as the Ministry of Information and Communication (Kominfo), to incorporate AWS content into the Digital Talent Scholarship program. Incorporating AWS training into this program will help students build in-demand cloud computing skills. In addition, our work with the Ministry of Education and Culture has led to AWS educational content being recognized as part of their Merdeka Belajar (“Freedom of Learning”) national initiative. This has resulted in five leading universities offering AWS cloud curriculum semesters this year.

With the AWS Jakarta Region launch, Indonesians will enjoy better cloud services across the board, with even lower latency and critical data compliance.

The Jakarta Region will help companies who are already on their digital transformation journey, and AWS is committed to ensuring these organizations have better access to an unmatched suite of cloud capabilities, as well as a pipeline of cloud talent.

It is crucial to have the best possible workforce to help Indonesia innovate its way into a future of more rapid growth where everyone wins. The cloud has the potential to lift people from poverty, educate millions, and help solve some of our most difficult problems. With online training, peer learning, and government-private partnerships, that potential to change the world is within reach.