Jakarta. The Health Ministry on Sunday called for youths to put on their thinking caps for innovations that could help digitally transform the country’s health sector.

"We need more innovations from youths in the Indonesian digital health ecosystem. And [for them] to work together [with us] to solve various kinds of health problems in Indonesia," Setiaji, the chief of the digital transformation office at the Health Ministry, said at the Youth 20 (Y20) Indonesia 2022 Second Pre-Summit over the weekend.

"Let’s create more research, products, and collaboration in the health sector to generate more precise, personalized, up-to-date innovations for better healthcare in Indonesia," he told the online conference.

According to Setiaji, the Health Ministry has set its sights on digital health transformation. The plan is to build an ecosystem that can promote health innovations, particularly those based on industry 4.0 technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), the internet of things (IoT), biotechnology, etc. 

This health innovation ecosystem embraces a multistakeholder approach involving universities, startups, the medical devices industry, insurance providers, health services providers, and the community. 

The ministry recently held the Health Innovation Sprint Accelerator 2022, an incubator program that promotes new healthtech and biotech innovations. The program sought innovations that could help address health issues, including national priority diseases such as tuberculosis and cancer.

A medical camera for early cervical cancer detection (Femicam) was among the selected innovations. 

“We selected 15 innovators out of 105 applicants, then chose the five best teams to showcase their innovations. They were mostly young people," Setiaji said.

"The Health Ministry is open for collaborations. So do share your ideas, and hopefully, the collaboration can help pave the way for more effective and efficient healthcare," he added.

The Y20 Indonesia 2022 Second Pre-Summit centered on the youth's role in digital transformation. The two-day, hybrid event took place in Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara.

The pre-summit kicked off on Saturday with the discussion focusing on raising the youth's digital financial awareness. The second day of the forum took a deep dive into youth inclusion and innovation in digital governance.