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Complementing academic prowess with sound leadership skills
You will be impressed when you talk to university students who are recipients of the Tanoto Foundation scholarship program.
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ou will be impressed when you talk to university students who are recipients of the Tanoto Foundation scholarship program. Most of them are very articulate in communicating their thoughts and self-confident in interacting with people from all walks of life. At such a young age they already have a clear vision on their goals and the steps to take to realize their passions and dreams.
Take Agata Ayu Gita. She is a 21-year-old industrial engineering student from the University of Indonesia (UI), Depok, West Java. She aims at integrating her passions in two different yet related areas, namely industrial engineering and the arts.
Gita, who joined the Putri Batik Nusantara (Batik ambassador of Indonesia) pageant in 2016, said she had always been interested in the local expressions of art, especially the Javanese wayang orang (human shadow puppet) and Javanese folk songs. She is especially passionate about promoting batik both to people who live in Indonesia and abroad.
“After I joined the Tanoto Scholars Association, Tanoto Foundation supported me financially to implement a community development project. I decided to organize a batik day at UI,” she explained, adding that she was hoping to one day be the head of the creative economy agency (BEKRAF) to further promote Indonesian arts to a wider audience.
Furthermore, Fathian Hafiz Aulia, an electrical engineering student at Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in Yogyakarta, said his field would thrive alongside the digital revolution and create many opportunities.
“I want to set up my own business and manufacture high quality local products that Indonesians would be proud to use,” he said, adding that he planned to enter the corporate world in order to learn business while forging his own network and developing his social capital to pursue his dream of becoming an entrepreneur.
These students are two out of more than 250 members of the Tanoto Scholars Association, who have received not just a scholarship but also leadership training from the foundation. The students recently took part in the foundation’s annual Tanoto Scholars Gathering in Pangkalan Kerinci, Riau, from Nov. 22 to 25.
The gathering sought to serve as a networking forum among the scholarship’s recipients, who study in 35 public universities across Indonesia. The gathering featured a number of activities, including soft skills training, outbound games and an inspirational talk by Indonesian ex-Formula 1 driver Rio Haryanto.
The scholarship program is one of the main activities of the Tanoto Foundation, a non-profit organization that is the brainchild of Indonesian businessman Sukanto Tanoto and his wife Tinah Bingei Tanoto. They believe that education is vital to alleviating poverty and this principle is the main driver of all of the foundation’s programs.
To qualify for the scholarship, prospective recipients who study in the foundation’s partner universities have to demonstrate strong academic achievement. The foundation also instills a number of important skills required to succeed, such as communication, leadership and interpersonal relationship building.
“As well as tracking their academic achievement, we also provide them with training in public speaking and presentation, skills that you don’t necessarily get at school. We also require them to engage in community development projects, in which they have to collaborate with other students to devise, execute and manage by themselves,” Tanoto Foundation board of trustee’s member Anderson Tanoto said recently in Riau on the sidelines of the gathering.
“The students age’s range from 18 to 22, and we know that often their academic performance is not only affected by their studying habits, but also personal problems related to family and friends,” he explained, adding that the counseling sessions also sought to help the students manage their emotions.
“We commit ourselves to developing Indonesian youth so they can be lifelong learners, future leaders as well as people who care for the well being of community,” he added.
Fathian said the workshop and training had given him practical skills that he could use in everyday life.
“For instance, we learn how to identify societal problems. We also learn how to persuade people that our projects are useful to the public, like we did when we organized training for elementary school students,” he said.
“These skills will be useful when we become entrepreneurs. The workshop also taught us about the skills that leaders should possess.”
“Being a leader means you have to be able to set an example and motivate people by doing the right thing so that they can mirror your behavior,” he said.
Meanwhile, Gita said a good leader is able to inspire others and develop warm and respectful relationships with other people.
