Youths Are Agents of Change Amidst Digital Disruption: Y20 Pre-Summit
Jakarta. Youths should act as the agents of change in today’s era of digital disruption, a minister said at the recent Y20 Indonesia 2022 Second Pre-Summit in Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara.
According to State-Owned Enterprise Minister Erick Thohir, Indonesian youths are facing three major challenges, namely health resillience, digital disruption, and the global supply chain crisis.
“It is these three challenges that we need to face together and of which youths must become the agents of change,” Erick told the conference virtually.
The millennials and generation Z account for 54 percent of the population. With the young generation taking the lion’s share of the population, they play a crucial role in propelling Indonesia towards becoming a developed country by 2045.
“The youth’s participation in a country’s development is crucial. And it is for this reason I convey my appreciation to the Y20 as a forum to formulate the best ideas for the development of Indonesia and the world, [among others] on digital transformation,” Erick said.
“Youths are the spearhead of the future. You will decide where the boat, that is this country, will sail and where it will dock,” Erick added, while also calling for the young generation to be adaptable, agile and embrace a growth mindset.
Likewise, Communication and Informatics Minister Johnny G Plate also named the young generation —of whom many are tech-savvy and digital natives— as agents of change.
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) reported that almost 70 percent of the world’s youth aged 15 to 24 are internet users at the end of 2019. Johnny also pointed out how tech geniuses like Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Apple’s Steve Jobs founded their companies at a young age of 19 and 21, respectively.
“This indicates how today's youths will lead the national or global digital transformation. [...] The youths of today, who were born surrounded by a digital ecosystem, play a crucial role as the agents of change in today's digital landscape," Johnny also told the Y20 pre-summit forum.
The two-day Y20 pre-summit in Lombok zeroed in on digital transformation. Saturday’s discussion focused on raising the youth’s digital financial awareness. The forum on Sunday is set to deep dive into youth inclusion and innovation in digital governance.
“The voice of youths is the voice of the present and future. What we produce today and tomorrow are not only the voice of the young people in Indonesia and G20 countries, but the voice of young people around the world,” Y20 Indonesia 2022 co-chair Budy Sugandi said.
Tags: Keywords: