UGM’s Center for Digital Studies (CfDS) Raised the Discourse of Digital Technology and Digital Society Through the Digital Society Week of 2024

Yogyakarta, 30th of September 2024—This year, Fisipol UGM’s Center for Digital Society (CfDS) has organized the Digital Society Week, with the title of “Navigating the Dynamics Between Digital Technologies and Digital Society in Indonesia”. The series of events in the Digital Society Week will take place for the next ten days. The event will present research dissemination with multiple actors, such as academia, industry partners, as well as stakeholders in the government sector, in order to discuss the interaction between digital technologies and the ever-more dynamic Indonesian society. 

This event was opened with the opening ceremony of Digital Society Week 2024, which was held offline in Fisipol UGM’s Auditorium. The opening ceremony discussed the dynamics of the advancements of digital technologies and its implications towards Indonesian society. This discussion presented four speakers, who are all experts in digital technologies and digital society, which includes Syaifa Tania (Executive Secretary of CfDS UGM), Andianto Haryoko (Deputy Director for Ecosystem & ICT Utilization-Ministry of National Development Planning/BAPPENAS), Agung Pamungkas (Government Affairs and Public Manager, Google Indonesia), and Perdana Karim (Research Coordinator of CfDS UGM).

The discussion session was opened with a lecture regarding the challenges and issues regarding digital technologies and digital society. In this opening session, Syaifa Tania identified four main challenges, which are digital access, data safety, digitalization impacts of socio-cultural norms, as well as the dynamics of digital economy. 

Meanwhile, Andianto Haryoko added another perspective from the government, in that the government should play a larger role by creating regulations in order to accommodate for the acceleration of technologies through adaptive digital policies, specifically ones that can create a digital economy ecosystem. “We associate our strategy with an ethical regulatory policy, we already have ITE, as well as PDP laws, where the level is very high. What I mean is that we should create rules and regulations for the lower levels,” spoke Andianto. 

Not just that, Agung Pamungkas, as representative from the service provider also mentioned the usefulness of technologies in bridging social challenges through the use of Artificial Intelligence, with the note that the use of AI can be held accountable, and also protect its users from risks.

All of the materials presented by the speakers in this opening ceremony will be discussed further in the ten days ahead. UGM’s Center of Digital Society will be inviting 28 researchers, academia, industry partners, as well as national and international governments, in order to discuss the issue of digital technologies and digital societies. Information regarding the series of events can be accessed through the link below: digitalsociety.id/dsw.

This event supports the efforts of UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, which includes SDG 4 Quality Education, SDG 9 Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure, as well as SDG 17 Partnership for the Goals.