At the Jakarta center, Sea Labs Indonesia, people pursuing a career in digital industries will undergo a six-month training course that includes fundamentals of technology, engineering and applied engineering. Participants will also receive on-the-job training in various projects.

Sea Labs aims to recruit 1,000 digitally talented individuals with expertise in several fields, especially engineering and product management, by 2023.

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“We hope to gather digital talent to develop Indonesia’s digital ecosystem and support [the country’s] digital economy in the future,” said Sea Limited CEO Forrest Li during the Sea Labs Indonesia inauguration ceremony on Monday.

Singapore’s SEA Limited, the publicly listed parent company of e-marketplace Shopee, internet and mobility provider Garena and digital payments provider SeaMoney, is worth $112.59 billion by market capitalization.

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President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said digital talent was critical for tapping into the tremendous potential of Indonesia’s digital economy, where transactions are estimated to reach Rp 4,531 trillion (US$315 billion) in 2030.

“[We] don’t want Indonesia to be just a market; Indonesia must be a player,” the President stressed at the same event, saying: “I really appreciate what Sea [Limited] and Sea Labs Indonesia have done, inviting much of our digital talent to return to their homeland.”

Indonesia faces a skills gap in the technology industry. According to World Bank estimates from 2018, the country was short 9 million skilled and semi-skilled workers in the digital sector in the period of 2015 to 2030.

Only 19 percent of Indonesia’s workforce has expertise in the digital field, Amazon Web Service (AWS) and strategic economics consultancy AlphaBeta found in 2021, while the country needs many millions more to support the economy by 2025.