JAKARTA -In his keynote address during 2nd Annual Indonesia Education Forum 2021, Gunawan Susanto, Country General Manager, AWS Indonesia said that for the last 12 months, many business actors, not only start-ups but also traditional companies, were forced to switch to digital platforms to stay operational. The switch to digital highlighted the skills gap amongst workers, especially in areas such as cloud computing, cybersecurity, software development, networking and wireless, data analytics and data science, programming, project management, AI and ML, IT service and management as well as virtualization.
“On the our LinkedIn platform alone, there were 264,501 cloud related vacancies posted globally in 2019, of which 12% required AWS skills and were posted in Asia and the Middle East. As Pak Wikan mentioned, it is not only about technology itself, but when it comes to adoption, the biggest challenge isn’t technology, it is the people and processes that must change and adapt. In addition, students must learn not only technical skills but also the soft skills or the professional skills such as analytical and problem solving skills to meet the skill set demand from the market,” he said.
AWS through its customized program for Indonesia will help the government and the Ministry of Education and Culture overcome the skills gap in cloud computing. One of AWS’s programs that is already running is the AWS Educate for K-12 students and students aged 14 years and above, AWS Academy for more advance or in partnership with universities as well as AWS training and certification for professional or graduate students who need more professional training.
AWS has since 2018 worked with various Indonesia stakeholders including the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Ministry of Manpower and the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, Bekraf and trained around 20,000 participants each year.
Leo Fernandez, Co-Founder & CEO, TalentEase shared his views on how people can improve their learning outcome. It is important to stimulate imagination not just managing knowledge. Digitize education materials in a safe and cost efficeint platform but the material should also be available as audible books so people can access it anywhere and everywhere leading to a more continuous learning experience, he said.
Mr Fernandez also cautioned against using 19th century metrics to measure 21st century skills which would defeat the whole effort.
Shreyasi Singh, Founder & CEO, Harappa Education noted that it is important not just to consume knowledge but be able to apply it and turn it into action. “We are in the golden era of learning, where people now are able to learn from variety of sources. But to be able to succeed, people need to follow stages including learning, reinforcing, contextualizing and finally applying,” she said.