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Can innovation help unite ASEAN?
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Unity -- Southeast Asian leaders link arms at the opening of the 28th and 29th ASEAN Summits and other related summits in the National Convention Center on Sept. 6 in Vientiane, Laos. From left to right; Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak, Myanmar's Foreign Minister Aung San Suu Kyi, Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Thailand's Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, Vietnam's President Tran Dai Quang, Laos' President Bounnhang Vorachith, Laos' Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith, Philippines' President Rodrigo Duterte, Brunei's Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen and Indonesia's President Joko Widodo. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)
T
he ASEAN community, launched at the end of 2015, is still very much in the making but could innovations among the 10 Southeast Asian member countries help the process of bringing about closer integration? Some 20 experts from diverse backgrounds will try to answer this question at an “unconference” in Bali on October 28-29 organized under the Eisenhower Fellowships program.
The “ASEAN Unity through Changes and Innovation” will feature, among others, Bambang Brodjonegoro, the Indonesian minister for National Development, Veerathai Santiprabhob (Thai central bank governor), Stan Shih (ACER Chairman) and Christine Todd Whitman (president of the Whitman Strategy Group).
These and the other 16 speakers are all alumni of the Eisenhower Fellowhips, a program that brings leaders from various countries and different professions to the United States to hone their leadership skills and widen their networks.
“ASEAN is a major initiative uniting nations in Southeast Asia,” said Svida Alisjahbana, the head of the Eisenhower Fellowships Indonesia. She noted that many fellows in Southeast Asian countries now hold important positions that involve them in public policymaking processes.
Up to 60 Indonesians have participated in the fellowship program in the past five decades. Many have become ministers or leaders of public and private organizations, such as Agung Laksono, Mari Pangestu and the late Nurcholish Madjid. An unconference is a term used to refer to a gathering that avoids some of the aspects of conventional conference, such as fees, sponsored presentation and top-down organization.
