The Center for Asia Leadership Initiatives Held a Leadership Conference and Workshop at UPH

On January 6, 2014, The Center for Asia Leadership Initiatives in collaboration with the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences held a leadership conference which was attended by 100 participants from universities all around Jabodetabek. This activity is one of the Asia Leadership Trek (ALT) 2015 program which is a co-sponsor of the Harvard Asia Center and Harvard Ash Center. Aside from UPH, ALT also held Socioeconomic – political tour activities to nine other countries in Asia. The activities undertaken included capacity building programs and conferences, with the main theme “Challenges and Opportunities in the 21st Century Asia”.

Basically, the ALT 2015 program was held to explore deeper about the best practices and examples of successful leadership, particularly in Indonesia and generally in Asia. We achieved this through a series of direct dialogue with various figures from government, private sector, academia, and the general public.

The track participants that would present in the conference and workshop at UPH were 45 young leaders from Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard Business School, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Harvard Medical School, MIT Sloan School of Management, and the Tufts Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

So far, the conference has been conducted in various universities / Ministry / institutions such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia, Tsinghua University, Remin University, Fudan University, China Young Leaders Foundation, Yonsei University, BizJapan, Impact Japan, Benesse Corporation, Sunway Education Group, Teach for Malaysia, Teach for Thailand, Handong University, SowAsia, and Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

In Indonesia, UPH became the first private university visited by ALT 2015. “Seeing that UPH is an advanced university from all aspects, having advanced vision and supported by advanced faculty and facilities, prevent us from thinking twice to collaborate with UPH for organizing events like this. We also had a dialogue with John Riady at the Harvard-MIT-Fletcher Group visits back in June 2014. We talked about the possibility of holding a conference and workshop at UPH and it was finally realized,” said Andi Sparringa, as the Executive Director of Asia Leadership Trek Indonesia Center.

The panelists at the Panel Session

The conference was divided into two sessions: Panel Session and Workshop. Panel Session was presented by panelists who will convey their perspective on the kind of leadership that is needed to deal with the dynamics and opportunities in Asia and the effect of leadership onvisions. Panelists explained  based on their direct experience starting from their college yearsuntil the time when they plunge into the professional world. Listed below were the panelists in this conference: 

Adauto Modesto Junior, Brazil, Harvard Kennedy School
(Brazilian Federal Government. Economic Advisor at Ministry of Finance and Civil Cabinet of Presidency)

Rachel Jane Mason, USA, Harvard Kennedy School
(Fulbright Fellow, Boren Fellow, Pickering Fellow, and Johnson Fellow at the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government)

Caitlin Goodwin Callahan, USA, Harvard Kennedy School
(Assistant Director, Bowdoin College McKeen Center for the Common Good -higher education/nonprofit/community service)

Abdulaziz Kelil Said, USA, Harvard Kennedy School
(Psychologist in Positive Psychology and Counseling)

Francesca Gabriella Ioffreda, USA, Harvard Kennedy School
(Deloitte Consulting)

Taniel Chan, USA, Harvard Kennedy School
(Goldman, Sachs & Co., New York City Department of Education, Education Pioneers, UBS Investment Bank)

Raghav Goel, India, MIT
(Cofounder of HealthTech startup, , Previously at Amazon, Intel, and IBM Research Labs)

Samuel Hungsoo Kim, Korea, Harvard Kennedy School
(Research Scholar at Harvard, Investment Consultant, Entrepreneur, Army Officer, Legal Aide)

Andi Sparringa, Indonesia, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
(Executive Director of Asia Leadership Trek Indonesia Center, Diplomat at the Indonesia Foreign Ministry, USINDO fellow, ASEAN-Indonesia Youth Ambassador)

Neha Sharma, India, Harvard Kennedy School
(Evaluation Consultant at the World Bank)

Workshop session

After the Panel Session, the activity was followed by a workshop and Career Mentoring series which were held in Building F. The workshops were divided into five topics:   Persuasion: an Everyday Exercise to Rally Opinions Social Entrepreneurship: From Idea to Realization International Organization (Career Mentoring Session) Foreign Service (Career Mentoring) Other Private Sector (Career Mentoring)

The panelists responded positively to the students who attended this conference. Especially in the question and answer session, where their enthusiasm were very visible through the quality of the questions.

Andi also expressed his hope to be more active in his efforts on bridging the transfer of knowledge from friends in Harvard, MIT, Fletcher to friends in various universities and high schools in Indonesia. Especially, he hoped to create a mutual sharing through the conference implementation plan (and capacity building workshops) in UPH. “We all had fun sharing our thoughts and exchanging brilliant ideas with the Indonesian youth at UPH,” said Andi.

Similar expectations were also conveyed by Lie Nathanel Santoso, Assistant Director of Business School, Faculty of Law & Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, “We hope that through this 2015 ALT Conference, the cooperation between UPH and the best universities in the world could be strengthen. Through this cooperation, of course, sharing knowledge will be more easily realized. Hopefully, UPH students can also take advantage of this opportunity to expand their knowledge and explore their potential as well as possible”. (ca)