Dr Hilman Palaon is a Research Fellow at the Lowy Institute in the Indo-Pacific Development Centre. His work focuses on digital economy issues in the Indo-Pacific region. Hilman has extensive experience in government, development, engineering, fintech, digital platforms, audit and consulting, and academia. He has previously worked for Ernst & Young, USAID, TNP2K (the Indonesian government's National Team for the Acceleration of Poverty Reduction), Gojek/GOTO, and the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance at the University of Cambridge. He has also worked as a consultant/adviser for the Asian Development Bank, MoneyGram, Eachmile Technologies, Novus Technologies, and Protiviti.

Hilman holds a PhD in Management Science from the Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia. He studied in Germany and Spain for his postgraduate degrees: Process Engineering and Energy Technology at the University of Applied Sciences Bremerhaven, Global Management at the University of Applied Sciences Bremen, and International Marketing at the University of Valencia. His undergraduate degree is in Electrical Engineering from the University of Indonesia. His research interests are the digital economy, economic empowerment, financial inclusion, and technology innovation.