by Selena F. Lie

I first got to know Riri Satria not as a poet, but as someone deeply immersed in the world of digital technology such as algorithms, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and everything around it. He’s always been a fascinating person to talk to. His thinking is sharp and structured, but never rigid or dry.

Maybe that’s not surprising, considering he’s a lecturer at the Faculty of Computer Science at Universitas Indonesia. As for me, I come from a more hands-on background, working closely with AI and cybersecurity, fields that pretty much define my day-to-day life.

I’ve spent quite a long time living outside Indonesia, so my Indonesian has become a bit passive. I can understand it well when I hear it, but writing in it doesn’t come as naturally as writing in English.

Even so, I’ve been following Riri Satria’s writings online for quite some time. Some of them are directly related to my field, AI, cybersecurity, digital transformation, IoT, but what keeps me coming back is how he goes beyond the technical side.

He writes about the human side of technology, about how fast the world is changing, about ethics, about morality, about what all of this actually means for us as people.

There’s something different about the way Riri looks at technology. He doesn’t just focus on what it can do, but also what it does to us. I remember him saying that we’re not really in a position to stop technological progress. If anything, we may even need to rethink our ideas about ethics and morality as technology evolves.

But at the same time, he always emphasizes that humanity shouldn’t lose to technology. That thought has stayed with me. It’s simple, but it hits deep, especially when you’re caught up in the fast-moving, highly technical world where it’s easy to forget why any of this matters in the first place.

What surprised me later on was discovering that Riri Satria is also a poet. Coming from a technical background, I honestly don’t know how to judge poetry in a formal literary sense. But I do know when I enjoy something, and I genuinely enjoy his poems. There’s a kind of honesty in them, something unfiltered and real.

Sometimes he even shares his poems with me privately, and I take the time to read them carefully. In a way I didn’t expect, those poems actually deepen my understanding of technology itself. They add a layer of feeling to something that is usually dominated by logic.

Over time, I’ve come to see Riri as someone who can’t really be defined in just one way. He’s part of the tech world, but he’s not limited by it. He sees technology as something that sits within a bigger human context, connected to culture, values, and even deeper questions about life.

A lot of his writing reminds us that if we ignore the cultural and human side of technology, we risk losing direction. And to me, that’s not just a theoretical idea, it’s something very real in today’s world.

His role as a lecturer at Universitas Indonesia adds another layer to all of this. He’s not just thinking and writing for himself, he’s also shaping the futue. He’s helping future technologists understand not just how to build things, but how to think about what they’re building. I imagine his students won’t just become engineers or IT leaders, but people who actually think about impact, about business, about society, about ethics.

All of this makes me see Riri Satria as someone who truly inspires. He brings new perspectives, challenges assumptions, and quietly pushes you to think deeper. There’s something about the way he writes and speaks that makes you pause, reflect, and look at things differently.

And on a more personal note of mine, I have to admit something. There’s a certain kind of appeal in a man who can speak the languages of mathematics, science, algorithms, and programming, who understands business and economics, and at the same time thinks deeply about culture, ethics, and humanity.

When all of that comes together and when it can even be expressed through poetry, it creates a kind of presence that’s hard to ignore. To me, that’s a form of intelligence that feels complete. Not just someone who understands the world, but someone who actually reflects on what it all means.

That’s how I see Riri Satria. A multidimensional man who keeps thinking, writing, and contributing in his own way. And I genuinely hope he keeps doing that, continuing to share his thoughts, his reflections, and his voice in shaping how we understand technology, humanity, and the future, especially in Indonesia.

Warm regards

Selena F. Lie