The event -- the Digital Talent Scholarship (DTS) -- held in South Tangerang, Banten, on Saturday, is part of the digital talent creation program initiated by the ministry.
The program aims to provide an understanding since an early age on the importance of data science and discuss potential future career prospects as data scientists.
"Knowledge on digital technology does discriminate by age," the Ministry's Research and Development Department Head, Hary Budiarto, noted during the event.
"The more we provide talent training to children, the better they become at mastering digital technology," he stated.
Children, already having an understanding of the digital era, hold greater potential. The ministry is encouraging this to produce more national digital talents, he remarked.
A total of 120 primary school students from grade 4-6 from nine schools spread across Greater Jakarta participated in the premiere introduction to Data Science for Kids.
This is the pioneering time that the ministry aims to produce digital talents from the alpha generation to become part of the DTS. Earlier, DTS only targeted university students or the productive-age population dominated by generation Z and millennials.
The alpha generation comprises children born in 2010 and thereafter and are known to have better digital proficiency as compared to the previous generations.
With this potential, the ministry does not want to miss out on the golden momentum to provide accurate education on digital technology and its development to these young Indonesian digital talents.
The Data Science for Kids event will feature introduction material on data science, utilization of data in the digital era, data scientist, and application of simple coding to configure data into an interesting content.
Specifically, in 2022, the ministry is targeting at least one thousand digital talents from the alpha generation that can receive training and education from the DTS program.
In future, the theme of the training will not only revolve around data but can also feature AI, IoT, cybersecurity, and coding, Budiarto stated.
The Data Science for Kids is also a result of the collaboration with private parties -- the Mastercard and Yayasan Cinta Anak Bangsa (YCBA) Foundation -- marked by the inking of a memorandum of understanding.
The Data Science for Kids will be in effect starting in September 2022.
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Translator: Livia K, Fadhli Ruhman
Editor: Sri Haryati
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