Ben Soebiakto

Since its first appearance in 2011, the number of renowned figures delivering compelling speeches and sharing knowledge with future creative individuals has steadily increased.

The current phenomenon where creative minds as young as 15 years old can start a movement against child exploitation and trafficking like Faye Simanjuntak back in 2017 or Rich Brian, now 20, who had gathered loyal followers to his YouTube channel when he was still 11, long before releasing the phenomenal “Dat $tick” in 2016 that made him the globally acclaimed rapper he is today, was beyond anyone’s imagination some 20 years ago.

“Young people today have more privileges in life than the people of my generation, when they can learn not only in school, in the conservative way,” Ben Soebiakto, cofounder of IdeaFest, the largest of Indonesia’s creative festivals, said in an interview. “Society realizes now that informal education is also important.”

“These days, there are so many sources of inspiration for the young people to start setting their future. During my school and college years, there weren’t many inspiring people with the ability to dream to look up to.”

Coming from a family of medical doctors in Surabaya, East Java, young Ben was always into art and drawing, fixing his mindset of becoming a graphic designer in the future. The education system, however, failed him a grade because he couldn’t pass the required subjects — which are all other subjects taught in school.

But he made it to the design school of Trisakti University and finished it as the second best and the youngest graduate of his class.

“I’m a graphic designer, but I can also be a filmmaker, investor and event planner. Today’s era gives you the ability to explore so many things. You can have a certain educational background, but you can be a professional in something else,” he said.

This self-made man is busy handling more than a dozen companies of his own. He established a creative consultancy, Octovate, where he and his team incubate creative talents to grow in business and management skills.

He created women’s portal Fimela.com and the lifestyle and entertainment news portal KapanLagi.com — which have been merged into the KapanLagi Network (KLN) — as well as a marketplace for Muslims, the Muslimarket, and the Suqma chain store for its offline presence.

Ben also established Benson Capital where he could invest in creative industries such as food and beverages (F&B) businesses and films, two of the highlights in IdeaFest.

“In the past, people were reluctant to admit that they’re working in a creative industry, thinking that they were not as valuable as their friends working in a bank or manufacturing company. But it’s a different age now. We need to empower creative young people and as they grow so does the industry.”

He pointed out that nowadays, even conservative companies such as banks and manufacturers tend to hire young people, those who are close to the creative industries.

“They have the idealism and they understand the trend that companies can adopt to develop their business. The drive of the economy today is actually creative young minds,” said Ben.

“Our people are creative people. We can see it from our rich culture, which is an important asset for the global creative producers of the future. It is our work to manage these creative young people.”

Now in his early 40s, Ben said he was grateful to be born right during the transition from Generation X to the Millennials as he was one of the early adopters of the technology at the turn of century who lived in both the digital and analog worlds.

“My generation understands what the process means as they have gone through that, which is a strange term now for most of the Millennials and the younger ones. Since they were young they have earned millions of rupiah of income from their YouTube views and didn’t get to experience landing a job with a salary of Rp 1.5 million [US$106.87] per month. They don’t know the process of understanding about job hierarchy to climb to get to a certain position.

“I don’t feel I was born too early or too late to be in this age and day. I found it perfect because I could experience the transformation of two generations and be a part of it.” (ste)

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