Papers

• Digital Capitalism in Indonesia Jacqueline Hicks University of Nottingham

  Data lies at the heart of future industrial development, yet questions around who owns personal data, who has the right to exploit it, and how its value should be shared are not yet settled. Within the context of a fierce international struggle between US Big Tech firms and national governments, this presentation looks at how Indonesia is handling these issues. As a country with an enormous digitally connected population, do its citizens enjoy adequate protections on the personal data they produce? Who profits most from the data produced here, and how could involvement in the international circuits of digital capitalism affect the country’s future?

• Digital Inclusion: Are Remote Communities Benefiting? Christine Horn Swinburne University of Technology

  For rural and remote communities in Malaysia, the inclusion in the digital economy through the growing reach of mobile phone networks promises social, professional and economic opportunities. New technologies are eagerly taken up by people living in these areas, but does this mean that opportunities will actually materialise?

  This presentation discusses research that investigated the uptake of digital technologies in remote Malaysia between 2015 and 2017 to study the ways in which people use such technologies and the kinds of benefits they derive from their use.

  Our data suggests that while people are keen engage with new technologies, the engagements are often limited to some few practices including social networks and communications tools. Other more sophisticated practices are less common even though they promise greater benefit. These include practices such as online banking, the use of e-government sites and more. This paper presents several approaches as to the causes of this disconnect using actor-network theory and concepts derived from theories around the diffusion of innovation.

• Southeast Asian Studies in the Era of “Industry 4.0”: Trends and Implications Arndt Graf Goethe University of Frankfurt

  Strategies to boost the digital economy have become an important part of government policies in most countries of Southeast Asia. Often, this is signified with the term “Industry 4.0” after the concept “Industrie 4.0” first announced by Kagermann/Lukas/Wahlster in 2011. The difference to the American concept of “Internet-of-Things (IoT)” is that in “Industrie 4.0” also the “Internet-of-Services (IoS)” is included. Hence, services such as Social Media, online shopping, digital finance, online cultural, political, and religious platforms are all covered under the umbrella term “Industry 4.0”. This paper enquires major trends in recent related research in Southeast Asian Studies, identifying key issues and disciplinary settings. The second part of the paper focuses then on the current integration of related issues in selected curricula of Bachelor and Master programs of Southeast Asian Studies, and hence on the impact of “Industry 4.0” on the core structures of the field.

• Strategies to Boost Digital Economy Towards Making Indonesia 4.0 Siska Premida Wardani Goethe University of Frankfurt

  In April 2018, the government of Indonesia officially released the program of Making Indonesia 4.0 as a response to the global trend of Industry 4.0. One part of succeeding the program is by developing digital economy in the country. Digital economy can be defined as economic and social activities involving the trade of goods and services in which knowledge and information technology play a significant role, using the internet and connected devices. Indonesia’s digital economy was predicted to become the largest in Southeast Asia, with values multiplying from USD 27 billion in 2018 to USD 100 billion by 2025 (Google & Temasek, 2018, 6). This new economy has been increasingly contributing to Indonesia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over the years, from 7.3 per cent in 2017 and projected to be 12 per cent by 2020. To support the growth and the development of the digital economy towards the national agenda of Making Indonesia 4.0, the government has set up several fundamental strategies, both political and economic ones. This paper is intended to examine those strategies and to investigate the challenges in carrying them out. This research is qualitative research which employs data from various sources such as government regulations, online and printed media, as well as textbooks.

Abstract

Keywords

• Economy