2,000 university students hone skills through Huawei AI Creation program to incubate Indonesian AI-based startups

Jakarta (ANTARA) - As part of efforts to support Indonesia to prepare 600 thousands digital talents every year and encourage the growth of local startups, Huawei in collaboration with BISA AI Academy, Oudpro Indonesia, and the Center for Computer Science Studies of UPN Veteran Jakarta organized a program to encourage students hone their entrepreneurial skills in creating start-ups. More than 2,000 students have been participating in Huawei's program to create artificial intelligence (AI)-based startups through the AI Creation program which was launched from August 2021 to January this year.

"This program aims to produce AI-based startups from Indonesia," said Octaviano Pratama as CEO of BISA AI Academy and Chairman of AI Creation.

"Reflecting on the success of the first batch of 2021 AI Creation, we will continue with the second batch of the AI Creation which will be held starting in February 2022 using Kampus Merdeka platform," Octaviano said, referring the platform to the program as part of the Merdeka Belajar policy by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia which aims to improve student skill competencies.

According to Octaviano, students who are currently in their 5th semester and above can sign in to join the program before January 14th, 2022.

President of Huawei Cloud Indonesia Jason Zhang emphasized that this program is a testament of Huawei's long-term commitment in accelerating Indonesia's digital transformation, especially in terms of support for strengthening the digital ecosystem and developing digital talent.

HUAWEI CLOUD has attracted 2.3 million developers, 14,000 consulting partners, 6,000 technical partners, and released 4,500 Marketplace products. HUAWEI CLOUD has become an important platform for organizations to go digital. HUAWEI CLOUD call on all to think cloud native, act cloud native, dive into digital and into the potential of Everything as a Service during the Digitalization. Talents plays an important role in the digitalization, HUAWEI CLOUD contribute Technology as a Service for flexible innovation, and Expertise as a Service for shared excellence during the talents developing.

"For more than 21 years of being present and growing in Indonesian society, Huawei hopes to continue to contribute in supporting economic recovery efforts after the pandemic and participate in supporting the grand vision of Indonesia 2045. Under the umbrella of I Do's commitments, Huawei currently has a target of preparing 100 thousand digital talents until 2024 as one of the contributions to prepare skilled and ready human resources to support the growth rate of digital startups in Indonesia," said Jason Zhang.

As of 2021, Indonesia ranks fifth in the world’s startup leaderboard with a total of 2,322 startups after the United States, India, United Kingdom and Canada. To encourage the development of startups in Indonesia, Indonesia has initiated the National 1000 Startup Digital Movement program since 2016. To date, it has been reported that more than 1,160 prospective startup founders have received assistance in developing their startup projects.

The AI Creation program begins with the selection of AI-based startup idea proposals, where students form teams to build their digital startups. As a result of the selection of ideas, the top 30 startups were selected to be given facilities to build digital startups in terms of technology development and artificial intelligence (Hacker), design and product (Hipster), and business and management (Hustler).

For 3 months, participants will be challenged to build their own startup products, brands and technologies that will be used under the guidance and direction of the experts and practitioners involved in this program. Participants will also be provided with industry insights, application development, and business through more than 50 webinars through Tampil ID (tampil.id). Participants are also provided with Huawei Cloud facilities for free.

Currently, 10 AI Creation finalist startups that have been selected from the first batch of this year will present their respective products at the Huawei Exhibition Hall in January 2022 in the hope of attracting the attention of investors who are interested in funding their pilot project.

The Huawei AI Creation program is also part of a larger program in Asia Pacific, called Huawei Cloud Spark, which was launched in August 2020 in Singapore. Through this program, Huawei collaborates with the government, leading incubators and venture capital companies and universities to build a support platform for new start-ups. Currently more than 40 startups have participated in this program.

The Spark program has invested more than $100 million USD over three years and provides comprehensive support for the startup ecosystem and creates new value for startups.