Indonesian Trade Minister Thomas Lembong speaking at Tech in Asia Jakarta 2015. Photo: Tech in Asia
If you’re not hip to all the happenings in Jakarta’s extremely active startup and tech scene, then you may have missed this week’s Tech in Asia Jakarta 2015 conference, which took place Nov 11-12 at Balai Kartini.
But even if you’re not a techie, there were a ton of interesting stories, discussions and revelations that came out of the conference that might be of interest to you:
- Thomas Lembong, the new Indonesian trade minister, is a gadget head and uses WhatsApp to run his ministry.
- Touchten, one of Indonesia’s most successful game companies, was started after founder Anton Soeharyo and his brother were gifted US$1,000 by their parents in 2009. They decided to create a mobile gaming company after hearing about a “fart app” that was making its creator $60,000 per day.
- The winner of Tech in Asia’s pitch battle was Manila-based U-Hop, an Uber for shuttle buses in the Philippines that has already found great success and could have great potential for battling gridlock in Jakarta as well.
- While in many other countries, e-commerce accounts for 10-20% of all sales, in Indonesia it still counts for less than 2%, making Indonesia’s ecommerce sector one of the most sought after markets in all of Asia with huge potential for the companies that can crack it.
Tech in Asia Jakarta 2015 was held from 11-12 November 2015, and is part of Tech in Asia’s annual series of conference events that aim to connect Asia’s tech ecosystem. To stay in touch with upcoming events in Singapore and Tokyo, visit events.techinasia.com.
*Coconuts Jakarta was a media partner for Tech in Asia Jakarta 2015*
