The Covid-19 pandemic has caused a hike in demand for online platforms and services, especially in Southeast Asia, where the digital economy is projected to reach a value of USD 222 billion in 2022. As the country with the highest digital economy value in the region, Indonesia aims to lead the digital economy evolution, as declared by the Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy, Sandiaga Uno, in the Plenary Session Speech of the 7th International Conference on Management in Emerging Markets (ICMEM) 2022 on Wednesday, 10/08/2022.
“The digital economy has become a new force in the Indonesian economy, with an Internet Economy Value of USD 70 billion in 2021 and is projected to reach double digits in 2025 with a value of USD 146 billion. We are seeing a massive digitalization process which also catapulted to a total investment of 38.7% in digital platforms, the largest number in Southeast Asia,” the Minister claimed.
With such extensive numbers, it is only appropriate that the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy take advantage of technology to get ahead of the game. Some of the technologies they use in their strategy are metaverse and blockchain, as seen in the Project Portamento and Wonderverse Indonesia Project.
Project Portamento is one of the ministry’s programs that will adopt blockchain technology to grow the music industry’s intellectual property and protect artist copyrights. It will load Indonesian musicians’ work into a database to track and monitor online downloads and usage.
“This program will help greatly in calculating royalties, as well as opening the possibility for creative works such as songs to be used as collateral when applying for a loan or mortgage,” Sandiaga explained.
Meanwhile, Wonderverse Indonesia is a metaverse world where users can interact with each other using avatars and experience Wonderful Indonesia in the virtual universe.
“This will enable us to create a meaningful journey in discovering Wonderful Indonesia with the collaboration of technology, cultural, natural heritage, and creative economy. It’s an ecosystem that connects Indonesia’s wonder to the world,” said Sandiaga.
Furthermore, Sandiaga mentioned that other than the government, private companies have also created a metaverse. For example, Banks have started to build virtual branch offices in the metaverse. Bappenas is also preparing to build a new capital city in the metaverse.
