IDN Chat Vol. 01: Indonesian Talents Should Always Try and Learn

Competing globally wasn’t something impossible at all for Indonesians, according to what Herman Widjaja (Tokopedia'sSenior Vice President of Engineering) and Aswin Utomo (Tokopedia's Vice President of Engineering) said. In "Innovation Secrets of Tokopedia", they revealed how they believed in the capabilities of Indonesian talents. 

The U.S. and China, for example, were large countries being successful to finally become developed countries. If you could remember, the next biggest countries after China would be India and Indonesia. “In 2004 when I worked in Google the U.S., I mentioned that I was from Indonesia. They were thinking where on earth Indonesia was? Was it part of Bali?" Herman said. "In 2004, there were still many countries which didn't really know Indonesia. Years later, when I was part of Facebook, Indonesia was one of Facebook's targeted-markets. Indonesia was said to be a brilliant market: the people were keen on learning digital technology. Now, many leaders, especially in the engineering field, of international companies are Indonesians," he continued. 

That should be the fundamental reason why economic optimization with technological approach was important, then. Tokopedia wanted to help actualize the prosperity of our country by sharing. "We regularly conduct online live-workshop. 50 computers are on for 4-6 hours. We share practical things because engineers will learn better that way. With common challenges, we learn to globally improve together," said Aswin when asked about the real contribution of Tokopedia in the realm.

"In essence, don't hesitate to try, to fix, to improve. Remember the Tokopedia's tagline: 'Coba Aja Dulu'. Since we trust in the capabilities of Indonesian talents, we conduct events enabling us to share what we know to them. We consider sharing knowledge as one of our responsibilities. It isn't only them who learn because we also learn from them—that's why we call it sharing. Together we're strong, alone we're weak," they said as a closing statement.