Google to help train 100k Indonesian developers after Jokowi’s Silicon Valley visit

President Joko Widodo meets Google CEO Sundar Pichai at the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters. Photo credit: President’s office

Google’s renewed interest in technical talent in Southeast Asia now includes Indonesia, according to a post on its Asia Pacific blog. Timed to hit together with Indonesia President Joko Widodo’s visit to Silicon Valley and his meetings with tech industry leaders there, Google has announced it will help train 100,000 Indonesian mobile developers by 2020.

Google will reach out to final year students and organize developer study jams in five major cities.

The tech giant will do this by reaching out to final year computer science students with a crash course on Android development, translating its online courses on Udacity to Bahasa Indonesia, and organizing Google Developer study jams to provide mentoring to developers of all skill levels in five major Indonesian cities – Bandung, Jakarta, Semarang, Surabaya, and Yogyakarta.

Google is also reaching out to consumers in Indonesia by lowering the minimum price of apps, products, and in-app purchases on its Play Store, from US$0.89 to US$0.22.

Journey to the West

President Widodo’s trip to the Silicon Valley this week is the second attempt by the Indonesian leader to tour the US innovation and technology hub. His previously scheduled trip, in October 2015, had been cancelled due to the haze crisis that raged throughout the second half of the year. During that trip, he was supposed to meet with Apple CEO Tim Cook and with Google executives.

This time, he met Silicon Valley notables like Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Much like Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong during his own visit to California, the President engaged with Indonesian employees who work for the US companies.

Indonesia President Joko Widodo tours Facebook’s headquarters with CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Photo credit: Facebook

In a Facebook post, Zuckerberg said that the company and the Indonesian government will continue working together to “increase connectivity and extend the opportunities of the internet to everyone in Indonesia.” The President even got some VR time in, using the Oculus Rift to face Zuckerberg in a match of zero-gravity ping pong.

At Twitter, Jokowi (as he’s informally known) streamed his visit via Periscope and posted a tweet from his personal account calling for the company to help “spread the message of tolerance in peace”.

President Joko Widodo’s tweet from Twitter HQ.

Mixed signals

The message of Jokowi’s visit to Silicon Valley seemed to be one of fostering innovation and tech development in Indonesia, with the help of companies from abroad coming into the country. However, his administration has had ideological differences with some of them, citing clashes between Indonesia’s social values and those companies’ products.