Indonesia – Singapore Management University has launched SMU Indonesia as a subsidiary, marking a long-term strategic move to strengthen Indonesia’s talent pipeline and improve employability outcomes amid accelerating technological disruption.
Positioned as a bridge between academia, industry and government, SMU Indonesia will work with Indonesian partners to co-develop executive education and future-ready skills programmes across sectors undergoing structural transformation. These include banking and finance, natural resources, mining, energy, telecommunications and infrastructure, logistics and transportation.
The initiative comes as Indonesia continues efforts to address workforce alignment challenges and expand skills development for a digital economy. The country’s Ministry of Manpower has identified the need for “triple readiness” in the workforce, where technical, digital and core human skills are developed in tandem by 2030. This is aligned with broader national efforts to strengthen digital literacy in higher education and prepare graduates for AI-driven job requirements.
Recent data from Statistics Indonesia (BPS) highlights ongoing structural gaps in the labour market. Around one-third of young workers are employed in roles that do not match their educational qualifications, while youth unemployment remains more than twice the national average. Approximately 3.5 million graduates enter the workforce each year, adding pressure on education-to-employment alignment.
SMU Indonesia is intended to help address this gap by scaling collaborative programmes that link education outcomes with industry demand across Indonesia and Singapore.
President Lily Kong, President of Singapore Management University, said, “Indonesia stands at a defining moment in its development, where the strength of its human capital will determine the trajectory of its economic transformation. At SMU, we believe universities must evolve beyond their traditional roles to become active partners in shaping workforce outcomes.”
President Kong continued, “The establishment of SMU Indonesia as a subsidiary reflects our deep and long-term commitment to this vision. By working closely with government, industry and academic partners, we are not only responding to immediate human capital needs but also co-creating an ecosystem where talent can continuously adapt, move and thrive across borders.”
“In doing so, we hope to contribute meaningfully to Indonesia’s ‘triple readiness’ agenda, supporting the development of a workforce across Indonesia that is technically proficient, digitally fluent and grounded in the human capabilities that will remain indispensable in an AI-driven world,” further explained.
As a subsidiary, SMU Indonesia will expand the university’s ability to deliver applied research, executive education and market-relevant training, while deepening engagement with Indonesian institutions and government agencies, including the Ministries of Education and Manpower, Bank Indonesia, Universitas Indonesia, Universitas Gadjah Mada and the Bandung Institute of Technology.
SMU Indonesia’s work will also build on several applied initiatives, including AI-focused workforce transformation programmes under SMU’s Resilience and Workforce Transformation (ResWORK) initiative, collaboration with Jakarta Smart City on urban innovation, and industry-embedded learning with partners in banking, energy and natural resources. Talent mobility initiatives such as the Global Ready Talent programme and Global Summer Programme will also support cross-border learning between Indonesia and Singapore.
Haryanto Adikoesoemo, President Director of AKR and Chair of SMU International Advisory Council Indonesia, commented, “Indonesia faces a skill gap in areas such as data science, AI, cybersecurity and cloud computing, which makes it difficult to support the demand driven by high-growth companies in the digital economy. I hope that the reinvigorated SMU Indonesia can work even closer with Indonesian academia and private and public sectors and support our talent challenges and build an even stronger future economy.”
As Indonesia continues its digitalisation and industrial upgrading efforts, SMU Indonesia aims to serve as a platform to better align education provision with evolving labour market needs, while supporting closer Singapore–Indonesia talent linkages through more industry-embedded education and training models.
