Having adopted the Consolidated Strategy on the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) at the 38th Asean Summit in October last year, Asean organized a socialization webinar for the strategy, themed, "Embracing the 4IR: Outlook, Strategies, and Plans for Asean".
The strategy, as revealed in the webinar, was built on Asean's existing 73 4IR-related initiatives, which are expected to grow in number in the coming years, reads a press release.
As efforts to realize the Fourth Industrial Revolution require collaboration amongst stakeholders and advanced technology providers, Huawei again expressed its commitment to support the Asean 4IR agenda.
The webinar was attended by Satvinder Singh, the deputy secretary-general of the Asean Economic Community, and Will Nankervis, the Australian ambassador to Asean.
Diverse Asean stakeholders, such as Dicky Edwin Hindarto, advisor for Indonesia’s Joint Crediting Mechanism; Sharlini Eriza Putri, co-founder and CEO of Nusantics; Amarti Charoephan, Asean director for Techstars Thailand/Impact Collective; Dr Le Hoang Dung, the chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Teacher Education Network; and David Lu, president, strategy marketing dept, Huawei Asia Pacific Region were also present.
Satvinder Singh said: “Although Asean, in general, has recorded a fantastic growth rate, there are still many aspects that need to be improved. One of them is artificial intelligence (AI) investment, which is still far below compared AI investments made in countries such as the US and China (i.e., $2 per capita in Asean as opposed to $155 and $21 per capita between 2015 and 2019 for the US and China respectively)."
He further noted that by taking a holistic approach, 4IR can be used to promote inclusion and sustainability as well as economic growth and competitiveness in the region.
David Lu said: "Huawei wants to add to our collaboration footprint in the region to create an interconnected Asean and bridge the digital divide." We will work closely with the Asean Economic Community to provide the technology, infrastructure, and digital talent it needs. Together, we will bring benefits such as reliability, lower latency, more effective and efficient production, and digital transformation to every industry. Moreover, we will also make a transition to a green, carbon-neutral, and sustainable economy."
To date, Huawei has contributed to half of all 5G projects across industries in the world, including in the port, mining, and education industries.
Sharlini Eriza Putri said: "Startup companies have a much faster pace, as well as the ability to disrupt conventional methods. Asean youth must take part in narrating 4IR, especially around critical issues such as health and the environment. Therefore, homegrown startups in Asean must be fully supported."
Huawei has a major program specifically for startups called Huawei Cloud Spark, which was launched in August 2020.
Through this program, Huawei collaborates with the government, leading incubators, venture capitalists, and universities to build a supporting platform for the emergence of new startups in Southeast Asia.
Recently, together with the BISA AI educational institution, Oudpro Indonesia, and the UPN Veteran Indonesia Computer Science Study Center, Huawei held an AI Creation program that challenges young people to design a startup with AI technology solutions as its main focus.
