Jababeka favorit future cyber city
Jababeka favorit future cyber city
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
In a bid to enable Indonesia to become a producer of information
and communications technology (ICT), the government has studied
several sites across the country to be developed into what is
being touted as a "cyber city".
State Minister for Research and Technology Kusmayanto Kadiman
said on Tuesday that the study showed that the Jababeka
Industrial Estate in Cikarang, West Java, topped the list of the
most suitable places for the country's first ICT center as it met
almost all the criteria.
"We prefer Jababeka (over other areas) as it has the necessary
infrastructure, including a power plant, water treatment
facilities and quality human resource from top universities to
support the development of a cyber city," Kusmayanto said.
The Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) and the University
of Indonesia have opened branches in Jababeka, located some 35
kilometers east of Jakarta.
Kusmanto said Jababeka had over 1,100 corporate tenants that
could utilize research facilities in the cyber city.
All that Jababeka was missing was sufficient bandwidth, the
minister said.
Kusmanto said that Jababeka has allocated 300 hectares for the
planned ICT developments.
To realize the plan, Kusmayanto said that the government was
now preparing a business proposal to be submitted to Microsoft,
inviting the company to set up its fifth research center in the
country.
"We will offer what we have to them. And I have devoted one
chapter to the location of the ICT project, including the
attractions of Jababeka," he said.
Kusmayanto said that Microsoft had set several requirements
before it would be willing to open a research center.
He said that these included security, distance and access to
and from Jakarta, and the quality of human resources.
Kusmayanto said that he believed that Indonesia could fulfill
all the requirements.
"I hope that by the end of this year, the proposal will have
been approved by Microsoft. The President has supported us so
far," he said.
However, a Microsoft public relations officer, Cynthia
Iskandar, said that what the company was hoping for was a
proposal for research collaboration with universities and not a
proposal to establish a Microsoft research center.
PT Microsoft Indonesia is offering internships at the
Microsoft Research Center Asia in Beijing to students and
lecturers from the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) and the
Surabaya Institute of Technology.
Microsoft Indonesia also denied an earlier report that it
would set up a fifth research center in Indonesia, after
establishing earlier ones in the U.S., UK, China and India.
Jababeka's president director Setyono Djuandi Darmono said
that the estate had world-class infrastructure and the necessary
human resources to become an ICT center and later develop into a
cyber city.