The island offers an ability to work in the Indonesian economy while only being an hour ferry ride from Singapore and Malaysia
Three Indonesian agencies announced today a series MOUs to support the growth of the startup ecosystem on the island of Batam.
The three core signatories of the 13 MOUs were Citramas Group, an Indonesian conglomerate, Nongsa Digital Park (NDP), its subsidiary, and Infinite Studios, a media and creative services company.
The core focus of these agreements is to provide programme initiatives to develop an ecosystem that will improve people’s ability leverage skills and work in the IT sector. This means a lot of the MOUs were agreed with universities or involved launching training facilities.
“NDP is profiling itself as a destination ecosystem for different stakeholders within the digital economy. This is not just a matter of physical infrastructure. The other thing we have is talent. We recognise the talent in Indonesia and this talent will benefit by having skills enhancement activities in Nongsa,” said Marco Bardelli the Senior Director and Board Member at Nongsa Digital Park.
“To do this, we signed MOUs that will kickstart various cooperation initiatives with education institutions in Indonesia in what we think is the natural catchment area of NDP,” he said.
In the longterm, Nongsa Digital Park wants grow the into a hub where international collaboration helps turn the facility into a place where a person’s talent is transformed into getting jobs. So far, the MOUs involved two organisations from Singapore, one from China and another from the United Kingdom (locations are included in the full list below).
To give a bit more insight into the nature of the MOUs, here are some details of a few of the cooperation initiatives.
An MOU between Citramas and the City of Batam will fund industrial certifications in Kabil, a town on the island.
There is a deal with Institut Teknology Batam to open a training facility inside NDP.
A blockchain company named LABSXF has signed an MOU with Temasek Polytechnic and NDP to facilitate co-collaboration and exploratory programmes.
An agreement between Infinite Studios and Nanyang Polytechnic, a Singaporean tertiary school, revolves around internship opportunities, staff/student visits and workshops. The 2018 signing continues a relationship that started in 2015 and has resulted in students producing CG-animated projects that get broadcast on global television networks. .
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A full list of the companies that signed an MOU with either Citramas, Nongsa Digital Park or Infinite Studios are as follows:
1. Institut Teknology Batam (Iteba)
2. Politeknik Negeri Batam (Poltek Batam)
3. Universitas Putera Batam (UPB)
4. Universitas Internasional Batam (UIB)
5. Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji (UMRAH), Tanjung Pinang
6. Universitas Universal (Uvers), Batam
7. Institut Teknologi Del, Toba Samosir, North Sumatera
8. Universitas Andalas (UNAND), Padang, West Sumatera
9. Temasek Polytechnic – LabsXF, Singapore
10. Energy Eco Chain – Dalian University of Science and Technology – ITL (Dalian) Big Data Technology – Singapore Chamber of E-Commerce
11. The City of Batam
12. Coventry University (UK)
13. Nanyang Polytechnic, SIngapore
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Batam is an island situated about an hour ferry’s ride south of Singapore and Johor. Geographically, it allows companies to tap into the Indonesian economy (Southeast Asia’s largest) while having easy access to Malaysia and Singapore.
Nongsa Digital Park was officially opened in March 2018 and the event was attended by the Foreign Minister of Indonesia Retno Marsudi and the Singaporean Foreign Minister Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan.
The agreements were signed during the e27 Academy event happening this week.
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A previous version of this article misspelled Marco Bardelli as Mario Bardelli, we apolgise for the error.
The post Slew of Indonesian MOUs aim to support Batam island tech scene appeared first on e27.