Microsoft to help 2.5 M in ASEAN acquire AI skills by 2025

Photo by Annice Lyn/Getty Images for Microsoft. Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella, on-stage, announced a new initiative aimed at equipping 2.5 million people with AI skills by 2025 across ASEAN during Microsoft Build: AI Day on April 30, 2024 in Jakarta, Indonesia. Watch the associated video at https://news.microsoft.com/indonesia-visit-2024/

Microsoft has announced a commitment to equip 2.5 million people in ASEAN member states with artificial intelligence (AI) skills by 2025. The skilling initiatives will be implemented in partnership with governments, nonprofit and corporate organisations, as well as communities across Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.

The company’s commitment aligns with the ASEAN Digital Masterplan 2025 to build an AI-ready talent pool in the region. It is also part of the company’s broader goal to empower individuals, organisations, and communities in ASEAN countries to harness the potential of AI to drive innovation and economic growth.

Dr Piti Srisangnam, Executive Director of the ASEAN Foundation, said: “We appreciate Microsoft’s commitment to upskilling ASEAN youth in AI, a pivotal step aligning with the ASEAN Digital Masterplan 2025. By fostering a sustainable digital talent ecosystem, it will contribute significantly to our regional development.”

Microsoft’s skilling commitment will focus on four areas: building an inclusive, AI-ready workforce; bridging the cybersecurity talent gap; enhancing developers’ AI skills; and empowering nonprofit organisations to maximise their social impact. These initiatives will build on Microsoft’s history of helping to close the digital skills gap in ASEAN countries. Over the past two years, around 1.7 million people have participated in its Skills4Jobs programme.

“What's truly exciting is the innovation mindset already prevalent in ASEAN. Investing in AI skills is investing in a future where economic growth is inclusive, giving every person a chance to contribute and benefit. With a robust pool of talent skilled in disruptive technologies, ASEAN is well positioned for the global tech race,” said Andrea Della Mattea, President of ASEAN at Microsoft.

Building an inclusive, AI-ready workforce

The digital age demands skilled workers, and vocational institutes will be critical in providing practical training for industry-aligned needs and roles. Microsoft will help strengthen vocational education systems across the ASEAN region to provide AI skills in partnership with the ASEAN Foundation and education ministries in the 10 member states, which will benefit an estimated 644,000 vocational students.

Through the AI TEACH for Indonesia and AI TEACH Malaysia programmes, Microsoft and the ASEAN Foundation will provide technical and vocational education and training students with AI skills. Microsoft is also training and educating 100,000 underserved youths and job seekers in AI, data, and security through its existing partnership with Kartu Prakerja, the largest pre-employment programme in Indonesia.

In addition, Microsoft is launching the AI Skills for the AI-enabled Tourism Industry programme in partnership with Thailand’s Ministry of Digital Economy and Society, Ministry of Tourism and Sports, Ministry of Labour, and the nation’s Technology Vocational Education Training Institute. The initiative will skill 100,000 young entrepreneurs involved in tourism businesses across minor-tier geographic provinces in all five regions of Thailand.

In the Philippines, Microsoft is committed to equipping 1 million Department of Education learners from kindergarten to grade 12 with AI and cybersecurity skills, ensuring their readiness for future careers and employment opportunities. Furthermore, Microsoft will strengthen its collaboration with the nation’s Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) by investing in a new initiative to equip 100,000 TESDA female learners with AI and cybersecurity skills. This will help foster a diverse talent pipeline for the country’s digital transformation.

Microsoft will also expand its partnership with the United Nations Development Programme Asia Pacific in Indonesia to Malaysia and Vietnam, helping 570,000 youth from underserved communities enhance their employability and work readiness through access to AI fluency skills.

Helping bridge the cybersecurity talent gap

The Asia-Pacific region is experiencing the largest skills gap in its cybersecurity workforce globally, with a shortfall of 2.7 million people in 2023, Microsoft said. At the same time, AI-powered security capabilities are becoming essential in the fight against today's cyberthreats.

As part of its global Cybersecurity Skilling Initiative, Microsoft has designed and curated training programmes with nonprofit organisations to help create alternative pathways for underrepresented youths into the cybersecurity industry.

Microsoft’s Ready4AI&Security programme will train 15,000 young individuals in Indonesia and Malaysia, focusing on providing opportunities for women to build cybersecurity careers. This will include access to Microsoft’s security training and certifications.

Enhancing developers’ AI skills to foster innovation

To support the ASEAN region’s 7 million-strong developer community, Microsoft has launched the Asia AI Odyssey campaign, which highlights how Microsoft’s AI applied skills validate the technical competencies required to build transformative AI applications. The campaign is running across Asia and aims to train 30,000 developers in ASEAN countries, encouraging greater use of AI services in the digital economy.

Empowering nonprofit organisations to maximise their social impact

In June 2024, Microsoft will host its first Nonprofit Leaders’ Summit to equip 1,500 non-profit employees with knowledge and skills in AI and digital technologies. Microsoft will also provide non-profits in ASEAN countries with access to the Microsoft Resources Hub and the LinkedIn for Nonprofits Resource Hub to help maximise their social impact and lead change in the AI era.

Indonesia highlighted

In a focus on Indonesia, Microsoft announced it will invest US$1.7 B over the next four years in new cloud and AI infrastructure in the country, as well as AI skilling opportunities for 840,000 people, and support for the nation’s growing developer community. It represents the single largest investment in Microsoft’s 29-year history in the country. Together, these initiatives will help achieve the Indonesian government’s Golden Indonesia 2045 Vision, which aims to transform the nation into a global economic powerhouse.

“This new generation of AI is reshaping how people live and work everywhere, including in Indonesia,” said Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO, Microsoft on April 30. “The investments we are announcing today (April 30) – spanning digital infrastructure, skilling, and support for developers – will help Indonesia thrive in this new era.”

Budi Arie Setiadi, Minister of Communications and Information Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, emphasised the significance of Indonesia’s partnership with Microsoft in realising the vision of Golden Indonesia 2045. “Indonesia’s collaboration with Microsoft on AI perfectly aligns with our ambition for a future driven by digital innovation. I am confident this partnership will open up new horizons for Indonesia, positioning us not only as consumers of technology but as pivotal contributors to the global technological supply chain,” he said.

Dharma Simorangkir, President Director of Microsoft Indonesia, said: “Our investment sets a new milestone for Indonesia’s digital landscape. We aim to empower Indonesians with the infrastructure and skills needed for the AI era, aligning with our national vision for digital prowess. It’s a crucial step towards making Indonesia a hub for digital talent and innovation.”

The digital infrastructure investment builds on Microsoft’s Berdayakan Indonesia (Empower Indonesia) initiative, announced in February 2021, to accelerate inclusive economic growth. This included plans to establish the company’s first data centre region in the country. The investment will enable Microsoft to meet the growing demand for cloud computing services in Indonesia. It will also allow Indonesia to capitalise on the significant economic and productivity opportunities presented by the latest AI technology.

The 840,000 beneficiaries of Microsoft’s skilling commitment include students with technical and vocational education and training in AI skills through the AI TEACH for Indonesia programme; women with opportunities and support to build careers in cybersecurity via the new Ready4AI&Security programme; young people with AI fluency training to enhance the employability and work readiness of those from underserved and underrepresented communities; and employees of nonprofit organisations with knowledge of, and skills in, AI and digital technologies.

Over 3.1 million developers in Indonesia use GitHub, the Microsoft-owned software development, collaboration, and innovation platform, the company shared. This makes Indonesia home to the third-largest developer community on GitHub in the Asia-Pacific region, after India and China. Indonesia is projected to be one of the top five developer communities on GitHub globally by 2026, with a 31% year-on-year increase in the number of Indonesian developers on GitHub in 2023 alone. Further, Indonesia witnessed 213% year-on-year growth in the number of public generative AI projects on the platform in 2023.

Many Indonesian organisations are boosting their productivity and accelerating innovation using Microsoft’s generative AI-powered solutions, Microsoft shared. These include DANA, a fintech company, PT Kereta Api Indonesia, the nation’s major operator of public railways, and Telkomsel, one of Asia’s largest digital telco companies. Other notable examples include:

Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI), a 128-year-old bank in Indonesia, which is developing four generative AI use cases in less than a year to enhance operational efficiency and service quality. They are a work instruction search engine for faster customer service, a 'content factory’ for streamlining the creation of marketing material, a letter-creation tool to standardise administrative documents, and a digital chatbot called Sabrina to provide transparent financial product information to millions of Indonesians.

BUMA, one of the largest mining contractors in Indonesia, started using Copilot for Microsoft 365 in March 2024 to improve the productivity of its workforce. Around 100 employees across the company’s departments are leveraging the tool to optimise their workflows and uncover previously underused features of Microsoft 365.

EFishery, the first aqua technology startup based in Asia with a mission to combat world hunger, launched Mas Ahya (Mr. Cultivation Expert) which is powered by Azure OpenAI Service. The technology is designed to provide advice and insights to Asian aqua farmers with varying levels of experience and uses everyday language. It will also support multiple local languages, starting with Bahasa Indonesia and Javanese.

PT Telkom Indonesia (Persero) Tbk (Telkom), the nation’s largest telecommunications provider, has enhanced its coding efficiency since adopting GitHub Copilot in mid-2023. In its early-stage usage, developers are already accepting 20–30% of the code suggested by the AI-pair programmer, which leads to increased confidence, productivity, and code quality.

Universitas Terbuka, Indonesia’s open and distance learning university, has created an AI assistant with Azure OpenAI Service in 1,000 virtual classrooms across 10 subjects; empowering up to 60,000 students across provinces. By indexing the teaching materials and grading criteria provided and curated by the lecturers, AI Assistant can help online lecturers evaluate, grade, and suggest improvements to students’ written answers. This real-time feedback encourages students to pay attention to their learning tasks and motivates them to participate more actively, thereby increasing student retention rates and contributing to their overall success.

Yayasan Mitra Netra (Mitra Netra Foundation), a nonprofit organization, used Azure OpenAI Service’s GPT-4 to enable its Arabic Braille Converter to convert Arabic text with harakat (vowel marks)* in images to Arabic Unicode. The app, created by a team including non-technical staff members and a programmer who is blind, can convert Arabic text with harakat to Indonesian Braille and vice versa, potentially benefiting millions of people with vision impairment.

The April announcements follow on from Microsoft's voluntary commitment in January 2024 to the implementation of AI ethical values as highlighted in the Indonesian Ministry of Communication and Information Technology’s Circular Letter No. 9/2023.

According to research by Kearney, AI could contribute nearly US$1 T to Southeast Asia’s GDP by 2030, from which Indonesia is poised to capture US$366 B.

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Watch the associated video at https://news.microsoft.com/indonesia-visit-2024/

*Traditionally, written Arabic does not include vowels, which could create some ambiguity about exactly which word is specified for those who aren't fluent in the language.