Indonesian Education Ministry Launch "Bangkit" Program for College Student

Jakarta, MINA – The “Bangkit” or “Awakening” program, a means of developing college students’ competence for a career in the technology world, officially is started on Monday.

The program is designed through a partnership between the Director General of Higher Education of the Ministry of Education and Culture with leading digital technology companies such as Google, Gojek, Tokopedia, Traveloka, and university partners offered through the “Kampus Merdeka” for 3000 selected students.

“The Bangkit Program is one of the learning models for the Independent Campus which is designed through the collaboration of Google as a global technology actor, unicorn and domestic decacorn with universities,” Director General of Higher Education Nizam at the opening of Bangkit 2021 on Monday.

This year, in addition to the machine learning curriculum, Bangkit will offer two other learning topics so that students are ready for a career in technology, namely programming with Android development and cloud basics with a focus on Google Cloud Platform.

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In each learning path, participants will also learn important skills that are useful for developing their future careers, such as design thinking, leadership, communication, entrepreneurship and presentation skills.

This program also collaborates with Stanford University through the University Innovation Fellow program. The best participants will have the opportunity to take part in the internship program from Stanford University.

According to analysts, AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology has the potential to increase Indonesia’s economic growth with a value of up to 366 billion US$ in the next 10 years.

“Therefore, we must prepare AI technology talents who will become AI leaders not only in Indonesia, but even in Southeast Asia. I hope the Bangkit Program can give birth to technology leaders in Indonesia who can accelerate the digital economy in the country, “said Nizam.

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This year, Bangkit gets tremendous enthusiasm, nearly 28,000 applicants from 500 universities throughout Indonesia. Then, they followed a comprehensive application and selection process, 3000 students passed the selection and were invited to register.

Of those who registered, 30 percent are women and around 29 percent of them came from non CS/IT backgrounds.

The Bangkit Program collaborates with 15 partner universities and selected students will take part in an online learning experience at Bangkit for 18 weeks starting February 2021.

Students will be accompanied by mentors from industry and universities. At the end of the semester, fifteen final project teams will be selected for further development including incubation grants and support from Bangkit’s partner universities.

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Participants who complete this program get up to 20 credits/semester credit units from the university (subject to the approval of the participant university).

In addition, after completing the program, participants will be invited to a virtual career fair, where they will get access to exclusive job opportunities at leading companies in Indonesia.

Partnerships with various industries are also an advantage for Bangkit participants. The best participants will have the opportunity to take part in the University Innovation Fellow program from Stanford University. (T/RE1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)