Agriculture or IT for the Future: Indonesia

It seems Indonesia is quite a good consumer of technologies, but has not been a significant supplier of information technology. Basically, Indonesia is an agricultural archipelago but it has to move with the times, so to speak.

The country has many computer scientists and engineers but the government has done nothing to help facilitate the growth of the IT industry as Naomi writes in the JP.

Indonesians have been struggling to make their presence felt in the technology industry. We once produced planes but the project seemed to be short-lived.

When it comes to technology Indonesia seems to lag far behind other countries. China with its population of over 1.2 billion has caught up with the help of hardworking citizens. Indonesians on the other hand whine and dream too much. Officials are not doing their jobs corruption is in the blood and the people are too lazy. These things hold the country back.

With a population of over 220 million the country has too many people and is poorly organized according to Naomi. Everybody focuses on all the wrong things and people from less prolific communities are left out. The education system is horrendous and different regions apply different standards.

Indonesians seem to be having a hard time facing the reality that we are an agricultural country. We are not going to invent the world's fastest train or any other such wonder so why can't we just drop the ongoing monorail project in Jakarta?

Indonesia needs to focus on what it can do best and thrive on it even if it means they become an agricultural country. As long as they put every effort into agriculture then they can recover from the financial troubles and become a better country if they focus on agriculture.

I'm not saying that technology is not important because it obviously is and Indonesia has to work on that. What I'm saying is that instead of daydreaming about the impossible, albeit nice, we should focus on more down-to-earth things which we can grasp and make the best of.

Brave words from an Indonesian lady with some foresight!.