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The G20 mandate: Making digital transformation more inclusive
Technology investors are often biased toward founders and cofounders who have urban backgrounds, speak English and are western educated.
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Indonesia's six unicorns are shown on a screen on Aug. 3, 2021. At the time, the six were ride-hailing company Gojek, e-wallet OVO, online travel agency Traveloka, logistics company J&T Express and e-commerce platforms Tokopedia and Bukalapak. (JP/Norman Harsono)
The Group of 20 Summit in Bali ended last week with flying colors. President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo won praise globally for successfully hosting an important international summit in difficult times.
The Economist’s headline, for example, called Indonesia “Asia’s overlooked giant”; the Financial Times reported a western delegate saying that Indonesians were smart in using common issues that everyone could agree on, such as food security, and then building on these to get all leaders to agree on the declaration.
The summit discussed and agreed on many important points. Among these were how digital transformation can be more inclusive – as indicated in points 24, 25 and 26 of the G20 Bali Leaders’ Declaration.
The G20 leaders recognized the importance of digital transformation as a vehicle to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In doing so, high-quality digital connectivity is important, as well as a resilient, safe and secure online environment.
Policies that enable digital economy and address challenges such as the digital divide, privacy, data protection, intellectual property rights and online safety are imperative. These policies are important to ensure digital businesses and entrepreneurs will flourish within the member countries.
Among the statements related to digital transformation, one important message was on the quality of the digital transformation, that is, to “advance a more inclusive, human-centric, empowering and sustainable digital transformation”. It is expected that digital transformation initiatives will be designed to fulfill the needs of users (human-centered) and be beneficial to everyone.
While it is great to hear G20 leaders highlighting this issue, there is a big challenge for Indonesia, since achieving all these qualities requires everyone to pay attention to the details of digital transformation processes beyond what we have been achieved today.
