Program
Providing Digital Skills to Expand Economic Opportunity
Our programming helps provide Southeast Asia's small businesses with the digital skills they need to adapt, compete, and grow.
Small businesses are central to Southeast Asia’s economies, and many lack the digital tools and skills they need to compete and thrive.
Running from 2020 through 2024, Go Digital ASEAN helped close the digital skills gap through free, practical, and locally tailored training for small enterprises. Implemented by The Asia Foundation with funding from Google.org, and endorsement by ASEAN Coordinating Committee on Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises, the initiative worked with local governments, civil society organizations, trainers, and business networks to reach communities across ASEAN.
impact
More than 400,000 individuals trained—60 percent of them women
The first phase trained more than 225,000 MSME owners, workers, and job seekers from underserved communities in ASEAN, with a special emphasis on women. The second phase expanded the program’s reach, providing advanced and specialized training on business and financial literacy, digital marketing, cybersecurity, and carbon footprint reduction to an additional 215,896 MSME owners and workers across the region.
Program Resources
Access practical curricula, training materials, and digital tools covering foundational and advanced digital skills, including digital marketing, financial literacy, cybersecurity, and green business practices. The resources are publicly available for non-commercial use, sharing, and adaptation with appropriate attribution.
approach
Go Digital ASEAN combined regional reach with locally grounded delivery. Training was adapted to local languages, business environments, and participants’ levels of digital experience. Local partners brought established relationships with rural and hard-to-reach communities, including entrepreneurs in the informal sector and industries such as agriculture and tourism.
The second phase offered three complementary learning pathways:
Go Digital
Provided foundational digital skills to underserved business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs in Indonesia, Lao PDR, Thailand, and Vietnam, helping them bring their businesses online and use digital tools more effectively.
Explore Digital
Connected MSMEs across ASEAN through a regional speaker series featuring entrepreneurs and business leaders. Sessions shared practical insights, business trends, and peer experiences to support learning and cross-border exchange.
Grow Digital
Provided advanced training and mentorship to businesses in Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Topics included e-commerce, digital marketing, financial literacy, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and greener business practices.
All training opportunities were fully funded and provided free of charge.
Featured Publication
Driving Digital Innovation: Opportunities and Recommendations
Micro, small, and medium enterprises drive ASEAN economies, comprising 97 percent of private sector businesses, 85 percent of the workforce, and 45 percent of regional GDP. Yet despite their economic importance, many MSMEs face a range of structural barriers to participating in the region’s growing digital economy due to fragmented policies on advancing digitization, limited access to affordable and relevant training, and scarcity of digital infrastructure and financing.