Kemendes PDTT Targets All Villages In Indonesia To Be Connected To The Internet By 2024

JAKARTA - Expert Staff to the Minister of Inter-Institutional Relations, Ministry of Villages, Development of Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration (PDTT) Samsul Widodo said, the number of mobile phones is more than the total population in Indonesia. The total population of the country is 266.91 million, but the number of mobile phone users is 338.2 million.

"This means 124 percent of the total population. So if you look at it, of course, many of the population actually use more than one cellphone," he said in a discussion initiated by BAKTI Kominfo with the theme "Utilization of ICT in the Era of Adapting to New Habits", quoted Wednesday, July 14.

Even so, he said, of the 74 thousand villages in Indonesia, as many as 10 thousand villages still do not have an internet connection. The government targets that before 2024, all villages in Indonesia will have an internet connection.

"The hope is that village children don't miss out on information, how we can use it in a wiser way," he said.

The problem, he continued, is that the use of mobile phones and the internet is like a double-edged sword. Sometimes there is good information and sometimes false news.

"The current situation we need one speed to adapt, there are triple disruptions of changes that are quite extreme," he said.

He explained that digital disruption had actually happened in the last 10 years. The pandemic has made the world's citizens more quickly adapt to technology.

"We adapt, that is, we have meetings using zoom and so on because there is digital disruption," he said.

Not only that, currently, according to him, there is also a millennial disruption. The millennial generation has a different way of dealing with problems than the previous generation.

"Then pandemic disruption, with this pandemic there are many things that we never expected and were surprised maybe from a few days ago hearing how many department stores were closed, such as Matahari, Giant, Banks which are now reducing their branches and even our last heard that Garuda is also in danger of going bankrupt and this is because of the pandemic, people are not moving anywhere," he said.

He hopes that through digitizing internet access, all parties can make the best use of it.

"So that later we can move the economy and of course we all hope that the pandemic can end soon," he said.