By : Anindira Putri Maheswani )*
The government through the State Intelligence Agency (BIN) continues to be committed to facilitating the development of outstanding athletes. One of these efforts is through the establishment of an esport sports institution and the BIN Sports Association which is expected to be able to help all Indonesian esports athletes so that they can continue to make achievements on the international stage.
In the current era, it is undeniable that everything has become completely digitized. Not only to make human life easier, with so many social media or many electronic transactions being carried out, even for sports, which might have been nearly impossible in the past without moving the whole body, in fact nowadays this can happen.
The emergence of electronic sports or esports has recently become increasingly booming and many people have followed it to Indonesia, especially the younger generation who seem to not want to be left behind by the times in the all-digital era like now.
Knowing how widespread esports is in Indonesia, the government through the Ministry of Youth and Sports (Kemenpora) and the Indonesian National Sports Committee (KONI) have officially recognized esports as one of the sports achievements in the country.
With this official recognition, esports can now be included in matches in official competitions at the national to international level which are already recognized by the Government of Indonesia. In fact, to further support the progress of the country’s esports ecosystem, the government has also officially approved the existence of an association that is a special forum for esports, namely the establishment of the Indonesian Esports Executive Board (PB ESI) which is expected to be able to continue to improve the achievements of all athletes in these electronic sports. to the international scene.
For information, not only the government, but the big role in continuing to advance national sports in the current era cannot be separated from BIN. Head of the State Intelligence Agency (BIN), Gen. Pol (Purn) Budi Gunawan has also been officially appointed as General Chair of PB ESI. Even since the beginning of his inauguration, he immediately prepared many strategic steps to guide esports in a better direction.
Some of the strategic steps taken by the Ketum PB ESI are to directly make all the regulations to be able to regulate the esports ecosystem so that in the future it can be much clearer and more focused. Thus, it is hoped that the athletes can further develop to score various achievements.
Budi Gunawan explained that so far there are still several obstacles, one of which is the absence of an esports training center. Suddenly since his leadership as General Chair of PB ESI, he emphasized that his party must be able to face all kinds of challenges, and as soon as possible the construction of an esports training center was immediately carried out even with international standards.
Furthermore, he explained that esports actually has a lot of benefits for the players, so that this activity can no longer be underestimated or just considered as a game. Some of these useful aspects are to hone the abilities of the younger generation, which can require them to think strategically, smartly and also creatively. They also play esports and can carry out analysis in formulating strategies, motivation to teamwork and also agility to physical endurance.
Knowing that there are a myriad of benefits from esports for the younger generation, Budi Gunawan emphasized that guidance and coaching for all of them, especially esports fans in Indonesia, is the right thing to continue to develop and encourage. The reason is, this also correlates with efforts to create very superior human resources (HR), especially in the all-digital era like today.
With the PB ESI management directly chaired by Budi Gunawan, it is indeed the best momentum to be able to continue to oversee the development of the entire Indonesian esports ecosystem for the better so that the impact can lead to accelerated development of various other strategic sectors in the country including defense, technology, creative economy, digital to tourism.
Then specifically, the State Intelligence Agency (BIN) itself has also launched the BIN Sports Association (PORBIN), in which there are as many as 8 sports, one of which is esports. This is concrete evidence of the role of BIN in the development of esports in the country. As Cabin, Budi Gunawan also admitted that the aim of establishing PORBIN was to improve the achievements of national athletes.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy of the Republic of Indonesia (Menparekraf RI), who was also appointed as the Board of Trustees of PB ESI, Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno supports PB ESI efforts by upholding regulations. For him, this will be highly correlated with increasing the ability of esports athletes to continue to score achievements.
The great role played by the government, especially through the State Intelligence Agency (BIN) deserves the highest appreciation. lots of efforts have been made to be able to continue to advance national sports in the current era.
)* The author is a contributor to Persada Institute