Bali News

2009 has been announced by Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as the year of creativity. In response, many initiatives have been rolled out to encourage growth of creative economy throughout the country. The Community of Economic Department of Udayana University (BKFE Unud) has conducted a seminar on creative economy in the campus on Friday, September 11th.

The seminar which was officially opened by Deputy Dean of Economic Department of Udayana University, Dr. Mahendra Yasa presented three resource persons, Chairman of Bali Post Media Group Satria Naradha, Head of Bali Office for Industry and Trade, Gede Darmaya, and a lecturer of Economic Department of Udayana University, I Gde Ketut Warmika. Serving as the moderator was De. Wayan Suartana.

After explaining the history of creative economy including international experts involved in its invention and development, Satria Naradha exposed that the essence of creative economy is original idea which brings financial benefit when it realized. He underlined the originality as it is immediately related to intellectual property rights.

In Bali, Satria Naradha offered an attractive idea about creative strategy, which is revitalization of Bali culture by utilization of information technology (IT). Combination of Bali culture and IT into Bali Information and Communication Technology can be translated into human resource development based on Bali culture, business management based on Bali culture, and development of Bali international networking.

As an example, Satria Naradha took wooden statue as an original Balinese handicraft product. With continuously shortening supply of wood, Balinese artists should be able to convert by utilizing technology. For example, using computer aided three dimensional rendering, the design converted into hologram technology which then can be fabricated in the US without an need to bring the material physically from Bali.

Satria admitted that as a market, Bali is very small. However, IT can bring products of creative economy from Bali into worldwide marketplace. Size is no longer measured in metrics but in megabytes or gigabytes. E-commerce is no longer a strange thing in Bali. Many booking transactions of Bali hotels and Bali villas have been made through internet. To leverage it for wider business purposes, technological savvy human resources is needed. Satria believes that utilization of technology will not bring negative impact as Bali has very strong cultural root.

On the other side Satria exposed the importance of maintaining balance of life by continuous contemplation. This way people will be able to know themselves better and assess their own strengths and weaknesses to power their efforts for better life. In modern way, SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunity, threat) is the tool to scientifically measure those potentials. Bali is very lucky to have a lot of significant cultural treasures. Invented centuries ago, they remain relevant to current situation. “Imagine that the harmony achieved by implementing the ancient concept of Tri Hita Karana has inspired more modern countries such as Europe and US”, he said.

Gede Darmaja explained that creative economy has 14 sub-sectors namely advertising, architecture, handicraft, design, fashion, music, performance art, film, printing and publishing, computer and software services, as well as researches and developments. To enter creative industry, human resources with creativity, rich in idea, and mentally discipline is required. Darmaja said that the Provincial Government of Bali has initiate creative industry by creating the right atmosphere for its growth including financial assistance and marketing through websites. He believes that creative industry is supported by three main actors, intellectuals, business community, and the government.

Darmaja later on explained the drawbacks in promotion of creative economy including lack of human resources with the right characteristics, less conducive climate, lack of appreciation to creative individuals, and lack of supports by financial institutions to finance creative industry. Furthermore he also encouraged campuses to design a new curriculum which supports creative economy.

To Darmaja’s insight, Ketut Warmika added a couple of other elements, which are media and press, as he believed in strategic role of them in spreading various ideas and examples of creative economy. With regard to educational curriculum, he exposed that Udayana University has designed its curriculum to support creative economy by inclusion of entrepreneurship study and transformation of education method from teacher-centric to student-centric.