EdTech Cakap Names Former Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan as Board of Commissioner

Jakarta, Indonesianpost.com – EdTech platform Cakap, officially announced Gita Wirjawan, Minister of Trade (2011-2014), as a member of the board of commissioners. Gita who has many talents in the field of art began to carry out his new duties as a commissioner in August 2022. He underlined that language is the only way to acquire education. Gita welcomed the decisions by saying that the EdTech business was a “low hanging fruit”, especially those that have a core business in foreign language courses. “There are still many Indonesians who do not speak the language that the global community uses,” said Gita.

Gita, who was the Chairman of the Session at the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference in 2013, emphasized that Indonesia is often less competitive in terms of communication skills on the international stage, compared to India and Singapore. In addition, Gita also emphasized that language skills can lead to well-being. Take for example the migrant workers from the Philippines who are able to bring in more money to their respective countries, because they are more fluent in English. “I hope in the future, Indonesian migrant workers sent to the Middle East, Hong Kong, and Singapore, are having a chance to become IT supervisors or GMs in hotels because of their capability in English,” said Gita who is now actively producing content for his own channel on a video sharing platform.

To date, Cakap has another name that sits on the board of commissioners. Arya Setiadharma is the CEO of Prasetia Dwidharma, an information, communication, technology, and investment infrastructure company. It also has Kenneth Li on the board of commissioners, who is the Managing Partner of MDI VC Singapore.

Gita was a guest speaker in a talk show on the Cakap Youtube channel, who again underlined the importance of the equal distribution of education, especially skills that are not obtained in formal education. “Imagine if 100 million Indonesians are proficient in English, and Mandarin, I am pretty sure that our human resources can fill strategic positions in global companies. The sky is the only limit. So we need extra effort to equalize our education standard, and this is where technology can play a role.”

Tomy Yunus, CEO & Co-founder of Cakap, highly appreciates this decision as Gita joins the board of commissioners. According to the leader of the platform, Gita is a figure who is very close to education and the right person or role model to support equalization access to high-quality education in Indonesia through Cakap. “Gita Wirjawan has a vision and mission that is in line with Cakap, which is to bring Indonesia’s potential and talents to the high. Cakap has a mission to elevate people’s lives by providing high-quality upskilling courses and accredited certification to the nation’s human resources,” said Tomy.

“To date, Cakap has more than 2,7 million students who have attended various classes/courses, 250 partners from various institutions for taking upskilling classes for their employees, and has empowered more than 1,600 teachers/experts. This figure keeps on growing, and in the future, I hope Indonesian human resources will be able to be a part of global citizens with high competency in foreign languages and vocational skills.” Concluded Tomy.

“What’s your endgame?” Tomy then asked Gita the last question at the event. “My endgame is to be a teacher. Currently, most countries tend to focus on curriculum, but they ignore the quality of teachers. The challenge is not only to produce qualified teachers, but also to have teachers who are tech-savvy, and this is what we are going to do together,” concluded Gita who was once a Chairman of the Indonesia Investment Coordinating Board.

Cakap is the leading upskilling platform in Indonesia with two core business pillars: Language and Vocational courses. The Company places a strong focus on developing Nationally recognized certified programs, and currently has more than 2.7 million registered students on its platform from 34 provinces and 95 cities. Cakap is also home to 1,600 Global and Local qualified Teachers. In terms of business, the Company has consistently grown 300% year on year in the past 3 years and booked a net profit in two consecutive years in 2020 and 2021.

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