Depok, August 15th 2023. The Indonesian Minister of Investment/Head of the Investment Coordinating Board, Bahlil Lahadalia, was present at the main event of the UniversitasIndonesia (UI) 2023 Campus Life Orientation (OKK) activities which took place on Monday (14/8), at Balairung UI, Depok Campus. The activity organized by the UI Student Representative Council (DPM) is the culmination of a series of introductions and coaching on campus life for students from class 2023.
At the event, Minister Bahlil advised all new students of UI to study at UI as well as possible. According to him, not everyone has the opportunity to deepen their knowledge and improve their quality and capacity at UI. “I used to have aspirations to study at UI. As a Papuan child living in a village, to attend elementary school, I have to walk 4 kilometers. After graduating from high school, my dream was to study in Jakarta, specifically at UI. However, I was not accepted during the admission exam. Once I became an entrepreneur, I once again applied to study at UI for the masters program, but was not accepted. Thank God, after becoming a minister, I was registered as a doctoral student at UI,” said Minister Bahlil.
Minister Bahlil added that various social and economic backgrounds were not a barrier for students to achieve their goals, including the dream of becoming entrepreneurs. According to him, Indonesia needs to increase the number of entrepreneurs because the number only reaches 3.4%. While in developed countries, the number of entrepreneurs reaches 10-12%. Therefore, Indonesia needs university graduates who want to become entrepreneurs so that they can create jobs and employment patterns in investment. Indonesia’s investment in 2022 will reach 1,207 trillion rupiah and is the largest investment in history.
The number of Indonesian investments can be increased through various efforts, including through infrastructure development and product downstreaming. Infrastructure development needs to be done to create new economic growth areas. Industrial downstreaming must also be carried out so that exports made by Indonesia are not only in the form of raw materials, but also materials with added value. One product that can be downstreamed is nickel.
“Currently, the world is already leading to the development of green energy and the energy industry. We will leave fossil fuels in the form of coal and replace them with electric vehicles. The raw material for electric vehicles is 40% battery. One of the raw materials for these batteries is nickel, and Indonesia controls 25% of the world’s total nickel reserves. This shows Indonesia’s potential to become the largest battery producer in the world,” said Minister Bahlil.
The public lecture given by Minister Bahlil is part of the debriefing provided by UI for new students. UI Vice Rector for Academic and Student Affairs, Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Abdul Haris, said that OKK UI activities were filled with great speakers who had good track records in various fields. In addition, in this activity, new students are also introduced to various student activities.
“UI has lots of student organizations that are ready to accommodate and channel your interests and talents according to their respective contribution paths. In this OKK UI, younger siblings are introduced to higher student institutions and get more information related to Student Activity Units (UKM) in the fields of arts, sports, reasoning, and national defense,” said Prof. Haris.
