Jack Ma, executive chairman of Alibaba Group Holding, said on Saturday that he will open an institute to train tech entrepreneurs in Indonesia, Reuters reported.
Jack Ma, who earlier said he would step down as the executive chairman of Alibaba Group Holding next year, is already an adviser to the government on e-commerce. Alibaba Group is the largest e-commerce company in China.
Jack Ma did not say when the Jack Ma Institute of Entrepreneurs would launch, but said the aim was to train 1,000 tech leaders a year over the next 10 years.
“We’re giving a lot of opportunities for young Indonesian people to learn,” Ma told reporters after meeting Indonesian ministers on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings being hosted by Indonesia.
The co-founder of Alibaba said it is important for Indonesia to invest in human capital because “only when people improve, when people’s minds change, when people’s skills improve, then we can enter the digital period”.
Indonesia has a shortage of trained engineers in technology and the institute will train developers and engineers on cloud computing to help make Indonesian businesses more digital-savvy.
Indonesia is a key market for Alibaba, whose cloud computing arm Alibaba Cloud launched a data center in Indonesia in March.
Jack Ma said his company would continue to invest “not only on e-commerce, but also cloud computing, logistics and…infrastructure” in Indonesia, while also helping local businesses to grow.
The value of Indonesia’s e-commerce market will surge to at least $55 billion by 2022 from $8 billion in 2017, according to a McKinsey report released on August 30.
