Peng T. Ong of Monk’s Hill wants to give Indonesia more tech talent, backs computer science scholarship

It’s no secret that Indonesia’s future as a tech hub is bright. Besides financial stability, one important element the country’s tech market needs for growth is a consistent supply of local IT talent. This is what the CS Leaders Scholarship program, a scholarship for prospective computer science students in Indonesia, aims to foster.

One of the initiators behind this program is Singaporean entrepreneur and investor Peng T. Ong. Setting up base in Indonesia through Monk’s Hill Ventures, Ong wants to help nurture the local tech scene by encouraging university students to study computer science.

CS Leaders helps a select few high school graduates to jump into computer science at the University of Indonesia (UI) and the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB). The scholarship is offering full-ride tuition and monthly living expenses to 15 Indonesian students this year. On top of that, students will have opportunities to work as interns at several IT companies in Indonesia, according to CS Leaders, although the program hasn’t yet announced which companies.

Why computer science is crucial

Ong has a Masters degree in computer science, and tells Tech in Asia that the discipline teaches unique skills that can let businesses solve problems. In comparison to general information technology and systems studies, computer science focuses on teaching basic tech logic and framework to develop more intricate products. “We want to have more people who build the APIs, not only use them,” says Ong.

See: Learning to code? I did it for 2 years – here’s what I learned

Apple’s Steve Wozniak, Google’s Sergey Brin, Uber’s Travis Kalanick, and Xiaomi’s Lei Jun all have backgrounds rooted in computer science. Even college dropouts like Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey agree that the computer science major is important in the tech world. The major has become one of the more popular choices in the US, with over 90 percent of Stanford undergraduates taking a computer science course before graduation.

A plugged-in Indonesia

For Ong, venture capitalist and serial entrepreneur, the goal is to help promote the major and its importance in Southeast Asia. While Singapore is picking up on this trend, not many Indonesians really understand the importance of learning computer science yet.

It’s important to note that computer science, computer programming, and software engineering are three different things. Computer science is the study of the principles and use of computers. Programming is a process that leads from an original formulation of a problem to executable computer programs. Software engineering is the study and an application of engineering to the design, development, and maintenance of software.

The main goal of CS Leaders is to build the local tech ecosystem, according to Ong, and the best way to do that is by keeping the nation’s talent inside the country. Secondly, the program’s initiators believe that smart people will find a way to learn deep computer science skills, wherever they are. “The goal is to place them in a computer science environment, and let them think and grow by themselves,” explains Ong.