Seeing the Role of Startups in Encouraging Indonesia's Economic Independence

Technological developments play a role in the emergence of various new innovations that are continuously presented through startup products and services. On the one hand, these innovations have indeed become the startup's main weapon in running their business. On the other hand, the innovations presented also contribute to solving various problems and challenges faced by the community.

Not only that, startups are also considered to be able to help empower the community and improve the quality of the economy through their technology-based products and services. This is also supported by an increase in adaptation to the use of technology by the Indonesian people.

The Emergence of Innovation in Various Business Sectors

The presence of these innovations is also accompanied by the emergence of new startups in various business verticals. Now people are not only familiar with startups in the category ride hailing and E-commerce only, but also getting to know various other categories such as fintech, edutech, healthtech, agritech, as well as other categories in everyday life.

The emergence of various variations of these startups is also inseparable from digital transformation in various business sectors. The presence of technology is now considered to increase effectiveness and efficiency in business operations. In addition, changes in consumer behavior also make a digital approach unavoidable in a business.

On the other hand, the presence of these innovations is also driven by the sensitivity of startup actors in seeing opportunities to overcome various problems in society through technological solutions. The problems that are solved also make the business model that is created not only includes consumers directly (business-to-consumer), but also includes fellow business people (business to business), depending on the product or service you have.

This sensitivity can also be seen during a pandemic like this. Several startups also present various new products, so they are forced to pivot to maintain relevance and maintain their business operations. This can show that even in difficult times, startups can still be present to answer new problems in people's lives.

Helping to Promote Indonesia's Economic Independence

The presence of technological innovations through startup products and services in these various sectors does not only help the community's economic activities on a micro basis. When viewed at a macro level, the digital economy is also sufficient contribute to Indonesia's GDP. According to INDEF's research, the digital economy has contributed 5.5% or around Rp. 814 trillion to Indonesia's GDP in 2018. Based on the same research, the digital economy sector has also helped to create around 5.7 million new jobs. It can be seen, slowly but surely the digital economy has also made a positive contribution in encouraging economic progress in Indonesia.

According to the report entitled e-Conomy SEA 2019, the valuation of Indonesia's digital economy in 2019 has reached $40 billion and is predicted to reach $130 billion by 2025. This can also show that there is great potential in this sector through the use of innovations presented by startups through their products or services.

With great potential and accompanied by technological adaptation in society that continues to increase, it is not impossible that technological innovations presented by startups will be one of the keys to realizing Indonesia's economic independence. In addition, the government is also expected to provide support to maintain and develop the startup ecosystem in Indonesia, one of which is through the development of inclusive technology infrastructure. So that the use of technological innovation by startups can be utilized widely and not concentrated at certain points. That way, these technological innovations can target various groups and regions so that they can help encourage the nation's economic independence.

This discussion related to startups and economic independence will also be discussed in the first series of three series of Startup For the Country webinars held by AWS in collaboration with DailySocial. With the theme "How Startup Innovations Can Promote Indonesian Economic Independence“This first series will discuss how startups can play a role in encouraging Indonesia's economic independence through technological innovations that are presented through their products and services. In addition, this webinar will also discuss what opportunities local startups can take advantage of to encourage Indonesia's economic progress in the future.

This first series also brought Peter Shearer (Founders Wahyoo) and also Mehr Vaswani (Amazon Web Services) as speaker. Through this webinar, participants are expected to have further understanding regarding the potential of startups and their innovations to advance the country. Immediately register yourself for the webinar via the following link.

Disclosure: this article is part of the publication of the webinar acara AWS #StartupForCountry