For the third time, PT Telkom cooperated with MIKTI (Masyarakat Industri Kreatif Teknologi Informasi dan Komunikasi or Creative Industries Society for Information and Communication Technology) organized the event for the digital entrepreneur, Indigo Fellowship 2011. This program is used by Telkom in order to attract talents in creative businesses and digital field, for then being incubated in business and funded by an arm-length entity of Telkom by the name of Indigo Ventures.
For this program, Telkom has allocated IDR 32 billion as the appreciation program for individuals or groups whom regarded have made creative digital work and provide value for society and encourage the growth of digital startup in the country.
Since its launch in 2009, the participants of the “Indigo Fellowship” continues to rise up. In the year of 2009, it reached 250 participants, in 2010 as many as 389 participants, and in 2011 it reached about 500 participants. Some startups that had been a winner, for instance, are e-publishing site Evolitera and port management applications Portmap by DyCode.
Programs such as Indigo is indeed very good to trigger the growth of digital startup in Indonesia, but unfortunately there has been no success stories of the winners of this Indigo program since 2009. Even the echo seemed to be drowned by the other programs. Even some participants of this program complained about Telkom’s commitment after Indigo program is completed, its long-term vision seemed to be still unsolid. May this year, Telkom could really lead the winners through Indigo Ventures and provide long-term value instead of just short-term.