Last weekend I visited Jakarta. In addition to meeting with potential university partners, I was very pleased to be invited to meet with the former Indonesian Vice President and UWA Business School graduate, Dr Boediono. Dr Boediono has a distinguished record of public service at the highest levels. As well as serving as Vice President, he was State Minister of National Planning and Development, Minister of Finance, and Governor of the Indonesian Central Bank. He has also for many years been a professor of economics at Gadjah Mada University. Dr Boediono is a great believer in the power of education to change lives, and of the need to make educational opportunities widely available. His studies at UWA were undertaken as a Colombo Plan scholar. It was inspiring to meet such a talented and committed statesman.

I also attended the In the Zone conference which was arranged by the Perth US Asia Centre, located at the University of Western Australia. The conference theme for 2016 was “Feeding the Zone”, and the 1,000 plus attendees heard from a range of academic, political and industry leaders on the policy and technological challenges that will need to be addressed to meet the growing demand for food in the Indo-Pacific region in decades to come. A particularly striking fact was that around 30% of the food currently produced in the region is not consumed, due to wastage of one kind or another. This suggests that improvements in logistics such as faster transport and more widely available refrigeration have the potential to close much of the gap that is predicted as populations grow. Another interesting innovation was the development of vertical urban farms, such as those being developed in Singapore, which make much more intensive use of a given land area.

We took some great videos whilst at the conference (including dancing!) which you can view here.

While many Australians have travelled to Indonesia, many of them have not ventured beyond the more popular tourist destinations. I see the ability of UWA students to undertake exchange programs with high quality universities in Indonesia as a great opportunity to learn more about a nation that will only grow in in importance, both to Australia and the world. I would encourage students to take advantage of initiatives such as the New Colombo Plan, whereby Australian students spend time in other countries such as Indonesia, as an ideal way to learn more about our neighbours.