Villages, Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration Minister Marwan Jafar said that the ministry was aiming to provide Internet access to 5,000 villages in the country this year.
“I am developing online villages and there will be 5,000 of them this year,” Marwan said as quoted by Antara news agency.
Marwan said he was optimistic that the target could be met in spite of funding problems.
Read more: ID: National scene: Poor villages to get Internet access
In regards to the government’s push for e-government systems, state-owned telecommunications giant PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom) aims to expand its focus on its government clients this year.
“Telkom will expand its focus on its enterprise and business services not only on large companies and small to medium enterprises, but also on government agencies as the current administration has a very strong focus on information, communications and technology [ICT],” Telkom’s director for enterprises and business service Muhammad Awaluddin said on Thursday.
Read more: ID: Telkom plans to expand focus on government clients
City to partner with local delivery tracking app Go-Jek.
Jakarta’s public bus operator TransJakarta will develop a mobile app for people to track the arrival times of buses at bus stops.
The app will allow people to track the location of bus drivers and estimate when buses will arrive at the bus stops, said Steve Kosasih, CEO of TransJakarta.
Read more: ID: Jakarta to develop mobile app to track bus arrivals
Sebangsa, a powerful new service for citizens and government to talk with each other.
One of the largest users of social media in the world, Indonesians are taking it a step further with a new social network just for public services.
Enda Nasution and his team have built an app called Sebangsa, or Same Nation, featuring Facebook-like timelines (or Twitter-like feeds) for citizens to share about public services.
Read more: Twitter for government: Indonesians get social media for public services
Indonesia wants to learn from Singapore’s experience of using technology to deliver public services, the Minister for Bureaucratic Reform, Yuddy Chrisnandi, said last week after a meeting with Singaporean officials.
Singapore’s e-government systems allow it to involve citizens in decision-making and also share real-time information with citizens, businesses and government officials, Chrisnandi noted.
Read more: Indonesia to learn from Singapore’s e-government experience