Opinion | How Indonesia is pushing medtech and insurtech as key pillars of AI blueprint to improve health care
- Online health care and medtech AI have risen in prominence in the country as the government seeks more equal access to health care
- Indonesia’s private health care insurance market remains small and is ripe for further development
Indonesia is pushing the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and a big part of this effort is focused on developing a vibrant medtech ecosystem to help solve the country’s pressing health care issues.
In early 2020, Indonesia announced a national-level AI strategy, initiated by its Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT).
With support from the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), this strategy placed significant emphasis on developing AI for public services.
Online health care and medtech AI have risen in prominence in the country as the government seeks more equal access to medicines and treatment for its citizens, spread across a vast land mass. The urgency has been heightened by the impact from Covid-19 – with Indonesia recently overtaking the Philippines as the hardest-hit country in Southeast Asia.
Thankfully, the archipelago nation of Indonesia is well-poised for AI start-up growth, helped by its young population, high mobile penetration rate, and a renewed government focus on technology and human capital development.
Over 40 per cent of the country’s population is under the age of 24, compared with a rate of just over 31 per cent in the US. The mobile penetration rate is around 70 per cent and nearly 60 per cent of all Indonesians are present on social media, making it one of the biggest, active digital populations in the world.
