Friday, July 22, 2022

Alternatives to Chinese technology training for the Indo-Pacific

Tom Worthington Speaking at NICT 2018 in Colombo
Presenting on M-learing for the Indo-Pacific, 2018. 

In "China Inc. and Indonesia’s Technology Future", van der Kley, Herscovitch, and  Priyandita (ANU National Security College, 2022), suggest Australia and its allies should provide tech training in Indonesia, to counter China's influence. This is a viable idea, from geopolitical, developmental, and market development perspectives. However, Indonesia has excellent tech educators (I have met many), and so this would be better done by assisting them, rather than being imposed from outside.  In 2018 I suggested countries of the Indo-Pacific could jointly educate professionals using mobile devices, in to counter the influence of China's Belt and Road Education Plan.

Rather than creating free courses, dependent on intermittent foreign aid programs. I suggest that allied educational institutions, and entrepreneurs, could be assisted to set up not-for-profit, and for-profit programs, which will be able to be self funding. This can be done using standard start-up techniques, and Indonesia's exceptionally vibrant commercial sector. 



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