THE Covid-19 pandemic has thrown a spotlight on the digital technologies, which helped us to reimagine the way we design our lives, work and economies. With a 15-percent contribution to the world economy, the digital economy had a great potential to support global recovery, and hence, Indonesia's G20 presidency placed digital transformation as one of its priority action areas.

The digital transformation, the adoption of online business models and the general shift of economic and social activities online, had changed the way economies functioned, the way businesses operated and the way societies interacted. The exploitation of big data during the pandemic enabled smart city models that were more resilient to multiple shocks and underpinned the emergence of a new kind of data-driven economy. For developing countries within G20, it opened new opportunities for international cooperation to leapfrog the intermediate infrastructure of the industrial age, taking advantage of new markets offered by digital platforms and exploiting enhanced service delivery offered by smart technologies.