Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – The Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs (KemenKopUKM) in collaboration with the Special Staff of the President of the Republic of Indonesia, Putri Tanjung, has successfully held the 2023 MSME Digital Heroes. In the 2023 MSME Digital Heroes Awarding Night which was held at The Telkom Hub, South Jakarta, Tuesday (19/12/2023), Three winners were born, namely Chickin (1st place), Jala (2nd place), and Elevarm (3rd place).

The three digital start-ups each have a vision of empowering MSMEs in the upstream sector, namely Chickin as an application that provides an agricultural management system to support farmers in their activities in the fields. Then Jala which helps increase the productivity of shrimp farmers through end to end solutions, and Elevarm as an agritechnology company that focuses on the upstream sector through empowering farmers.

The three of them were selected as the best from 10 other young digital innovators after taking part in a series of activities pitching day. The 10 innovators with startups pitching are Broiler X, Dynamic Buzz, Henbuk, Moleps, Arconesia, Chickin, Antrique, Silang.id, Elevarm, and Jala.

Each winner is entitled to a prize of IDR 100 million for first place, IDR 75 million for second place, and third place gets IDR 50 million.

Minister of Cooperatives and SMEs (MenKopUKM) Teten Masduki expressed his appreciation to innovators for their initiatives and contributions in developing MSMEs in the upstream sector through digital startups, as an effort to exploit the potential of the digital economy.

“The government sees the digital economy as a new economy. Therefore the government wants the development of the digital economy not only downstream, but also to develop on the upstream side, namely in the production sector,” said Teten.

According to the former head of the Presidential Staff Office, today digital economic development is mostly carried out downstream and carried out by the private sector. Therefore, Teten wants digital transformation to be pursued as fully as possible in the agricultural and aquaculture sectors which are the economic strengths of Indonesia and even ASEAN.

“Especially in the agricultural and aquaculture sectors, where these two sectors are the most involved MSMEs. We know small producers And small farmers “need digital application technology to aggregate the scale of their business, and connect them with markets and financing as well as with modern production technology,” said Teten.

Furthermore, he also wants the application of technology in the upstream MSME sector in the country to continue to be improved to support the productivity and quality of domestic products.

“We want to use Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), and smart factory “In fact, it increases productivity, efficiency and quality of our products,” he said.

Furthermore, Teten hopes that, by strengthening the digital ecosystem, the digital economy as a new economy will be able to make a significant contribution to national GDP.

Putri Tanjung, who is also the Initiator of Digital Heroes for MSMEs and Special Staff to the President of the Republic of Indonesia, assessed that the innovators who attended the event were able to answer various problems faced by MSMEs.

“All businesses are local, they really help MSMEs in specific markets, that's what we want to expand,” said Putri.

He revealed that the selection process for the 2023 MSME Digital Hero finalists was carried out by paying attention to several things. First is background and consistency foundersecond is the potential for business growth, third is related to sustainability And profitabilityand finally how big an impact it has on MSMEs.

[Gambas:Video CNBC]

(miq/miq)