Introducing Nongsa D-Town
Nongsa Digital Park (NDP), a Batam-based collaborative community for tech and creative talents, was recently mentioned as part of Singapore’s investment budget over the next three years. Deputy PM Heng Swee Keat announced that Singapore will be allocating around $24 billion over the next three years to enhance its digital connectivity and global presence, a plan which includes cross-country investments like NDP and its next phase of development, Nongsa D-Town.
Located just 40 minutes by ferry from Singapore’s Harbourfront, the digital hub provides an opportunity for rising startups from both countries to collaborate within close physical proximity. It is designed from the ground-up as a “digital bridge between Indonesia and Singapore,” complete with co-living and co-working spaces, a tech campus, and a plaza.
Designed by award-winning Singaporean firm Surbana Jurong and developed by two of Indonesia’s largest conglomerates, Citramas and Sinarmas Land, the interconnected layout of D-Town includes a residential village, tech campuses, a town plaza, and a commercial centre and is set to house 8000 tech talents when completed. There are currently about 1000 tech talents at the existing NDP working for tech companies and startups from Singapore and Indonesia.
The economic ties that bind
Singapore and Indonesia are home to Southeast Asia’s most vibrant tech ecosystems. Eleven out of the thirteen tech unicorns operating in ASEAN are headquartered in either country, and seven out of those eleven are homegrown startups.
The two countries have produced companies that dominate the regional market by virtue of first-mover advantages over their neighbours through superior technology, as is the case with Singapore, and massive population size, as is the case with Indonesia. Their respective startup scenes share and compete with each other for talent, resources, and market share. Startups based in one country have often dipped their toes into another’s market, with the Gojek-Grab rivalry being the most famous regional example.
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Overlapping time zones between Indonesia and Singapore facilitate ease of work across borders. Due to the accelerated transition to digital within the last year, cross-border collaboration between remote teams has become a common occurrence. Despite Singapore’s technological advancement compared to its neighbours, it faces a shortage of tech talent. Nongsa D-Town will allow talent from Indonesia and Singapore to collaborate directly within the same area, providing a solution to the shortage while further tightening economic ties between the two nations.
At 270 million people, Indonesia is the largest market in ASEAN. Indonesians are notoriously early adopters of new technologies when given the chance, with 32% of the population keen to use new tech products as soon as they enter the market according to a YouGov survey conducted in 2020. The sheer volume of Indonesian consumers eager to try new technologies makes the country an ideal stepping stone for Singaporean startups that intend to scale regionally, often through Batam as a port of call.
From boomtown to digital hub: A short history of Batam’s economic growth
Batam has historically been designated as a Free Trade Zone by the Indonesian government due to the island’s strategic location off the coast of Singapore. Formerly an industrial boomtown populated by state-run oil and gas employees, the island’s population has exploded since it was designated as part of a Free Trade Zone, or FTZ, in 2006. Previous trade agreements between Singapore and Indonesia and special government incentives like the elimination of tariffs and VAT for goods traded between Batam and Singapore, make Batam an attractive location to do business.
Within the perimeter of the D-Town Masterplan that will be launched on March 2nd, there is Nongsa Digital Park (NDP), an initiative supported by both Indonesian and Singapore Governments which is frequently mentioned in high-level bilateral meetings between President Jokowi and Prime Minister Lee. D-Town leverages on the initial success of NDP that saw several international companies have already taken advantage of the access to talent and the economic incentives currently offered to set up in the digital downtown.
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Indonesia’s National Special Economic Zone Council, chaired by Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto, announced on July 10th, 2020 that NDP has the potential to create employment and boost economic growth, hence it was recommended to President Jokowi to be confirmed as a new Special Economic Zone.
Current tenants include Glints, an online recruitment platform headquartered in Singapore; R/GA, an innovation consultancy with offices in 11 countries; and the Webimp Group, a Singaporean firm specialising in bespoke tech solutions for enterprises.”
Nongsa D-Town: a Digital Bridge between Indonesia and Singapore
From both a company and a talent perspective, D-Town is optimised for innovation.
The settlement is built upon the three philosophical pillars of ecological, digital, and physical sustainability. Rather than the hyper-urban culture typical of many downtown tech hubs, life at D-town is designed to accommodate sustainable mobile work. This allows residents, tourists, and digital nomads alike the privilege to enjoy beaches, mangroves, rivers, and rolling hills while living in an area with well-developed digital infrastructure and high-speed internet.
Just as Batam has served as a physical and economic entrepot, D-Town will transform the island into a digital bridge between Indonesia and Singapore. Batam’s long history as a centre for cross-country collaboration will extend into the information age as the Nongsa SEZ opens a new chapter in the bilateral relationship between the two countries.
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The grand launch of Nongsa D-Town is scheduled for March 2nd, 2021, and is viewable via webinar. At the launch, audiences will be able to listen in to first-hand experiences from D-Town’s partners and tenants. Notable speakers will include Marco Bardelli, Senior Director of Nongsa Digital Park; Irawan Harahap, Chief of Digital Tech Ecosystem & Development at Sinar Mas Land; and Andrew Wee, Director of Design at Surbana Jurong.
RSVP to the grand launch by signing up through this link.
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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by Nongsa
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