JAKARTA, BILL GATES IS IN TOWN!

Bill Gates speaks today before three thousand crowds in JakartaConvention Center (JCC), Senayan, Jakarta, Indonesia. Speaksbefore him in this Presidential Lectures was President of Republicof Indonesia Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY). The lecture wasguided by Indonesian Trade Minister Mrs. Marie Elka Pangestu. The third richest person in the world, Mr. Gates, opened hisspeech on "2nd Digital Decade" by exploring the rapid changes of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). He spentsometime on the process of how he got in touch with ICT in hisyouth. At a glance he, then, showed the rapid changes on totalnumber of Personal Computer (PC) available around the globetoday from 241 Millions in 1996 to 1,1 Billions 2008; improve onbroadband capacity from 0.1 M in 1996 to 264 M in 2006; andchanges on cellular subscriber from only 1 % in 1994 to 41% of population in 2006. He also mentioned how the capacity and thecapability of PC were doubled in every just two years in lastdecade. He underlined that these advances in ICT technologywould not slow down nowadays.Bill then, illustrated his speech with slides showing how the NextWave of Business Productivity would involve unifiedcommunication; social computing; enterprise search; andbusiness intelligence. He also congratulates President SBY forimproving ICT infrastructure in Indonesia but reminds the countryfor improving skills and keep preparing National Plan.As for Microsoft advances, Bill told the crowd that his giantcompany is now preparing Natural User Interfaces software thatcould make 4 systems available through speech recognition; pen;vision or watching; and with gesture from the users. In additions,Bill assures the audience that in the next decades TVdevelopment will be Internet driven.Before closing his speech, Bill showed the crowd of how hiscompany has been trying to make a combination of satellite ortelescopes system with specially designed software to explore theuniverse. Bill ends his presentation by giving an example of howan elementary student can explore the other stars and use the

software to learn more his planet. He also added how ICT canhelp leaders and his or her nation to fill the gap on poverty,education, and health issues.Bill also underlined that young students should have someprivilege to enjoy themselves in spending their time in the school.His remark reminds me of my children who have to carry theirheavy bag by hand to bring all of their books. If the bag is notlarge enough, they could put all of the stuffs on their backpackthat could alter their bones. So hard the curriculum in Indonesiaand so heavy the books, the children then have to use the rolled-luggage bag just to make their teacher happy that they do notleave any book at home.Speaking before Bill was President SBY who addressing 3 basicquestions. The questions are: (1) How will the world change? (2)How do we employ technical stuffs to resolve the issue of ourtime such as poverty, global warming etc; and (3) How doeshumanity issues to be fit in today's rapid changes.While the participants are instructed to sign in on 0630 sharp inthe morning, the lecture faced the delay for about half an hourand just started at 0835 WIB. As a matter of fact, President SBYgot in the building minutes before the time, followed by Mr. Gates10 minutes later. However, both of the speakers were thenescorted to the VVIP room for courtesy meeting. The audienceswitnessed that the President changed his neat dark suits to aLong Sleeve Batik, just to respect and match with Mr. Gates whowore a Batik from his hotel on. Hmm.., may be it took sometimefor SBY or his aids to decide for change. The lecture also provides a half an hour Q/A session. Fiveparticipants ranging from businessman, press, private, anduniversity students addressed questions to Bill and SBY. Whenstudent asking him about his recipe to progress in a giantsoftware business, Bill just remind them for not to follow himquitting from school. He underlined that the student should finishtheir college firstly and join any start up company in order tohave a broaden vision for their future.I do not buy that advice, instead..Bill could have told them just toquit from school!