The 34th Indonesia Update

Digital Indonesia: challenges and opportunities of the digital revolution

16-17 September 2016

HC Coombs Lecture Theatre, ANU

It is widely believed that we are in the middle of a technological revolution. The dynamic capacity of the internet to connect and transmit information—as well as the evolving nature of devices and infrastructures, owing to digitalisation—has seen new technologies bring rapid change to many parts of the world, including Southeast Asia. Unfortunately, much of the scholarship and debate surrounding the impact of digital technologies remains highly Western-centric.

In Indonesia, digital platforms have been used to organise mass rallies, assist with election monitoring, and generally provide a space for greater freedom of opinion and expression on a variety of issues and events. Digitalisation has impacted the media industry, banks, polling institutes, terrorism networks, disaster relief and city planners, as well as education, employment, political activism, artistic production and much more.

President Jokowi himself recently promoted Indonesia’s capacity for investment in the digital economy during his visit to the White House. Yet digitalisation has seen existing business models thrown into disarray through what scholars describe as ‘disruptive technologies’. But what exactly is the digital economy, and can it live up to its promise? What challenges and opportunities does digitalisation bring to Indonesian governance, politics, policy, culture and society more broadly? How can Indonesia bridge the ‘digital divide’?

The 2016 Indonesia Update will address these and other urgent questions surrounding ‘digital Indonesia’. It will include experts from Australia, Indonesia and around the world, from a range of disciplines, who are researching the impacts of digital technologies. It will also include speakers who are actively involved in developing new digital platforms in Indonesia.

Speakers will include Ainun Nadjib, Onno Purbo, Michele Ford, Usman Hamid, Emma Baulch and many more.

The conference is free of charge.

Conference convenors

Ross Tapsell
School of Culture, History and Language

Edwin Jurriens
The University of Melbourne

Conference administrator

Indonesia Project
ANU College of Asia and the Pacific
Canberra ACT 2601
AUSTRALIA

Photos by Giovanni Armando and Arif Dharmawan.