From the Widjaja to Hartono dynasties, wealthy scions are giving Indonesia a tech boost

The descendants of families that run conglomerates are dabbling in the country’s vibrant tech sector by investing in home-grown firms and start-ups

Industry stakeholders say family-owned corporate venture capital firms have played an important role in growing Indonesia’s US$44 billion digital economy

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The scions are investing in tech firms in a variety of ways, including money, resources, know-how, and access. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 9:30am, 23 Aug 2021

Indonesia’s digital economy was still in its infancy when Michael Widjaja – a third-generation member of the Widjaja family that runs Sinar Mas Group, one of the country’s largest conglomerates – returned in 2007 after finishing his business studies in California.

He is the grandson of the late Eka Tjipta Widjaja, a Chinese-Indonesian business tycoon who established Sinar Mas in the 1960s. Today, the conglomerate has interests in the likes of agribusiness, paper, and financial services, with 37-year-old Michael as the group CEO of Sinar Mas Land, its real estate unit.

Michael is also part of a group of wealthy Indonesian scions that have in the past decade dabbled in the country’s vibrant tech sector by investing in home-grown giants and start-ups, be it in the form of money, resources, know-how, or access.

Drawing from the two-thirds of his life that he spent overseas, mainly in Singapore and the United States, Michael came up with a tech-enhanced vision for the company’s prized property – a 6,000-hectare township called Bumi Serpong Damai (BSD), which includes residential and commercial sites, located in South Tangerang, on the outskirts of Jakarta.

“I used to study in Singapore, where I learned a lot about real estate, pedestrian [design], and other things like that … the urban infrastructure, master planning, were very clear [there],” Michael told This Week in Asia.

“I really tried to model BSD City after Singapore, to be quite a perfectly planned city. Quality of living and city planning are the things that I would like to bring to Indonesia.”