Jakarta. Tech firm Huawei Indonesia once again held the Seeds for the Future 2021 program to ready Indonesia's digital talents in facing the future of work, the company announced in a recent statement.

The pandemic has but accelerated digitalization in all facets of life – both in Indonesia and the world. The need for capable, competent digital talents in large numbers becomes a pressing necessity to be able to answer present and future industry needs. 

In response, Huawei Indonesia is holding the Seeds for the Future 2021 program for Indonesia’s foremost talents, selected from a number of universities.

Held online from November 8-15, this year's program emphasizes preparing digital talents to anticipate the future of work, especially post-pandemic, and open up opportunities for participants to network internationally. 

“Indonesia needs 600 thousand digital talents per year, making it a total of 9 million talents by 2030," Hary Budiarto, the research and human resources head at the Communications and Informatics Ministry said in his opening address.

Represented by the Informatics Ministry, the government is working together with all stakeholders to amplify the digital talent development programs under the Digital Talent Scholarship umbrella, synergizing different ideas and programs that aim towards digital talent creation in Indonesia, according to Hary.

"To that end, we appreciate Huawei’s cooperation with  government and universities to create positive impacts and foster innovation as well collaboration, in order to answer global challenges," Hary said. 

"We hope the Seeds for the Future program opens up the way for Indonesian digital talents to continue learning digital skills as we welcome the era of digital transformation and Industry 4.0.” 

According to Huawei Indonesia government affairs director Yenty Joman, the future of work will heavily rely on advanced technologies such as AI, 5G, cloud computing, and IoT. 

"The relentless march of digitalization, driven even faster by the pandemic, necessitates wide scale upskilling through multiple helix collaborations between stakeholders in order to answer the demand for work-ready, future-proof digital talents," Yenty said.

In response, Seeds for the Future 2021 will try to introduce the future of work, especially in Indonesia, in addition to expanding participants’ knowledge of state-of-the-art technologies, solutions, and innovations. 

"The program will also connect the participants to over 9,000 alumni from 500 universities in 130 countries,” Yenty added. 

With its 21 years of presence in Indonesia charting a course for growing together with its people, Huawei is eager to show its continued commitment as the nation’s economy is  poised to stage its most robust post-recession recovery, according to Yenty.

The ICT talent development program, in  particular, will again be a central to this year’s Seeds for the Future 2021 which stands above one Huawei Indonesia’s pillar of ‘I Do Contribute’ which aims at cultivating 100,000 future ICT talents  in 5 years and is foundational for the Indonesian digital ecosystem.

The Seeds for the Future program was a continuation of the Huawei National ICT Competition of which 1,164 students from 24 leading universities in Indonesia have enrolled in this year’s  program. 

Since launched in 2008, more than 100 Indonesian delegations have taken part in previous  programs, including on-site tours to the Huawei Headquarters in China, where they would learn  directly from global practitioners and academics together with other participants from around the  globe. 

During the 8 days in which the program is held, participants will be facilitated to share ideas and  collaborate in working groups to accomplish the Tech4Good project.

It challenges them to use  technology to answer various urgent social and environmental issues. At the same time, the project encourages participants to hone their social entrepreneurship and problem-solving skills by coming up with concrete project ideas for technology solutions with social impact and value. 

The Seeds for the Future program is also part of Huawei’s global initiative to prepare talents in  order to consolidate the digital ecosystem.

Since mid-year, the initiative was taken a step further with the launch of Seeds for the Future 2.0, through which Huawei will invest $150 million in  talent development within the next five years, reaching 3 million digital talents globally in as we build the foundation to an inclusive digital economy, where digital literacy and skills are a basic human right as defined by the United Nations.