BANDUNG, PRINDONESIA – It seems only yesterday that the 2018 PRIA took place in Surabaya. This time, PRIA held by PR INDONESIA is back in Bandung collaborating with the Government of West Java Province. The appreciation for public relations (PR) practitioners from all of Indonesia will be held for three days from 26 – 28 March 2019.

This agenda is opened with a conference session. In his remark, Asmono Wikan, founder and Editor in Chief of PR INDONESIA mentioned the big theme that is raised in PRIA this year, namely “The Role of Public Relations in 5.0 Era”. The man who also appoints as the Secretariat General of the Union of Print Media Companies (SPS) did not deny that this theme gained many spotlights form the public, especially from PR practitioners. There are many who argued that this is too early for Indonesia to discuss about Society 5.0, while there are many PR practitioners who still haven’t mastered the Industrial Revolution 4.0 era.

For him, there is nothing called too early. The reason, time keeps changing and it will never stop. Morover, PR is called as a profession that is identic with nonstop learning process. “Stepping into an unpredictable area which is hard to understand is inevitable and can’t be avoided. But, belief that something that is hard to understand will be something that is useful in our life, especially PR in carrying out their activities,” he said.

5.0 Society era was first emerged in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Swiss, on January 23, 2019. At that time, Shinzo Abe, the Prime Minister of Japan in his speech said that the 5.0 era is an era where we can find solution to various problems that had been difficult to resolve. In the super smart era, technology that developed in era 4.0 allowed all data to be connected and then to be used to answer human problems, social life, and even industry in a more personal way.

Japan itself has been working on this discourse since 2016. One of its objectives is to overcome the threat of a shortage of productive workforce in their country. Meanwhile for PR INDONESIA, Society 5.0 is a momentum to invite all PR practitioners in the country to humanize human beings in communicating.

The Speakers

This agenda was enlivened by a number of speakers. Present as the speaker today was the founder and CEO of The London School of Public Relations Prita Kemal Gani, CEO of Blanja.com Jemy Vestius Confindo, Marketing Director of PT Blue Bird Tbk's Amelia Nasution, and Team Deputy IV for Communication and Information Dissemination of the Presidential Staff Office Roysepta Abimanyu.

The theme 5.0 will be explored more on the second day of the workshop session which featured a number of speakers with various derivative themes such as Chairperson and founder of Indonesia Cyber Security Forum (ICSF) Ardi Sutedja, Marketing & Communications Director of Accenture Indonesia. Both will be the presenters of the material for their special class, this time PR INDONESIA in collaboration with HUMAS INDONESIA invited all GPR to take part in the Creative Storytelling workshop in the Era of Public Information Openness. Meanwhile the peak of the event will take place on Thursday (28/3/2019). (rtn)