Tony Keusgen (nzbusiness.co.nz)

Tech behemoth Google believes that Indonesia is well on its way to becoming a “digital powerhouse” due to the increasing utilization of internet resources by local businesses. With a 250 million strong population, Indonesia’s smartphone penetration rate and internet usage rate currently stand at 43 percent and 34 percent, respectively, signaling the country’s potential to become a crucial digital economy in the region. Google’s country director for Indonesia, Tony Keusgen, spoke with The Jakarta Post’s Dylan Amirio and Esther Samboh to share his insights into how Google is trying to help local businesses thrive better online and assist Southeast Asia’s largest economy to reach its goal of becoming a digital powerhouse.

Question: So basically, what does Google aim to achieve in Indonesia?

Answer: One of our aims is to drive support for the digital economy through strengthening the online presence of businesses in Indonesia, particularly small and medium enterprises (SME). We have been doing so since opening our office in Indonesia back in 2011, investing mostly in developing people, skills and businesses here to help them make the most of the web.

What kind of potential to do you see in Indonesia’s digital development?

The impact of the internet in this county is already profound, as every year more people here come online than the entire population of New Zealand. What I’m excited about is that Indonesia is becoming a digital powerhouse in the Southeast Asia region, and could expand that status to a global level. Currently with the increasing mobility and online activity of Indonesians, it’s beginning to have an impact on day-to-day and business levels.

Basically, the digital economy enables Indonesians to go about tasks in different ways: It gives business to a driver, a restaurant or even the simple ojek (motorcycle taxi) driver. We looked at the strengths of Indonesia’s e-commerce market and are excited about what we see. You might have lower bandwidth speeds compared to other countries, but the environment is very robust and thriving, with many local platforms springing up and maintaining their popularity.

Also, despite having 50 million active SMEs, only one percent of them have an online presence. In the last 12 months, we have helped 241,000 SMEs get online through our business services such as MyBusiness, and we’ve been encouraging them to utilize our resources, such as AdWords and Google Trends, to help expand their business opportunities.

Are there any startups receiving your assistance that have standout potential?

We have a program called Launchpad Accelerator, which selects a handful of startups with great ideas and helps them with funding and mentoring. The economic ecosystem in Indonesia is tough, for getting funding or finding out how to apply one’s skills, and that’s why we want to help in those fields.

We have received ideas from startups such as Jojonomic, a cloud-based expense processing platform for claiming business expenses more easily. Also SeekMi, a service connectivity business. From it, you’ll get a bunch of quotes for jobs and tradespeople in a more streamlined way. The ecosystem is good. We sent eight startups earlier in the year to mentorship programs at our Mountain View office in California and we will send five more in June. They need some experience after all, and Accelerator gets them moving.

Most of the five startups we’re going to send to California are based in Java, I think. Maybe because internet-wise, they’re more exposed. But some people in the startups have worked in other industries before, such as finance, and that helps strengthen their ideas.

So, what can Google provide for the Indonesian digital economy to help it thrive?

Google has a commitment to train 100,000 app developers in Indonesia by 2020. When I say that Indonesia is poised to become a digital powerhouse, this will be driven partly by the 100,000 developers that we train.

We’re going to do it in three ways: Partnering with universities, running online courses through Udacity and holding physical workshops. At universities, we train computer science majors in their final year as part of their integrated courses on building apps and writing code. Udacity courses on app developing have been translated into Indonesian, and workshops have been held routinely, most recently in West Jakarta. I think 800 people showed up to that one. Training sessions are ongoing.

What kind of trends do you see from Indonesian internet users, especially when they use Google or sister sites such as YouTube?

People go to YouTube for entertainment and also to build their businesses and livelihoods. At the end of the third quarter of 2015, the amount of content uploaded to YouTube from Indonesia had grown 600 percent year-on-year — three times faster than any other country in Southeast Asia.

You’ve got 75 Indonesian content creators with over 10,000 subscribers, 30 creators with over 100,000 subscribers and one that has over 1 million. We want to see more of this. It’s helping the creators too because these views can be monetized through the YouTube Partner Program, which would also be dealing with advertising.

Google makes most of its revenue here in Indonesia through advertising. We have clients ranging from the smallest businesses to the largest brand builders. It levels the playing field and the YouTube Partner Program is part of that effort.

What can Google do to address the problem of internet accessibility outside of Indonesia’s major cities?

Anecdotally, many of our e-commerce clients are saying that they are happy to see their growth coming from outside of Jakarta. The rationale is that outside of major cities, many don’t have the full range of access to goods and services. The internet can provide a solution to all that.

The solution actually lies in smartphones. I feel that they are revolutionizing everything. We launched the Android One smartphone last year, an affordable 3G handset priced below Rp 1 million, designed especially for markets like Indonesia, India, Brazil and Mexico. As phones get smarter and cheaper, more people have them and that can definitely increase internet access in areas such as Eastern Indonesia.

In the end, the key is to make the most of utilizing the web. The more uses that people see, like the eFishery startup [aquaculture service from Bandung participating in Launchpad Accelerator], the more digital technology will enter rural areas. Mobile applications are inspiring people to say “I need a handset to do this”.

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