With great pleasure CAUSINDY welcomes Fauzi Ichsan, managing director, senior economist and head of government relations at Standard Chartered Bank in Jakarta to speak on the Economics and Trade panel session.

Fauzi’s expert knowledge and services on economics extends far beyond Standard Chartered clients. In addition, he provides economic and market views to the Vice President of Indonesia, Minister of Finance, Bank Indonesia Governor and parliamentary commission XI on banking and finance.

Fauzi Ichsan believes it is important to identify and differentiate the various types of relationships between Australia and Indonesia. He classifies three main types of relationships: government-to-government relationships, business-to-business relationship as well as people-to-people relationship.

“The government-to-government relationship fluctuates in political disuse, however the people-to-people relationship is very strong and it has been getting stronger in the last 20 years or so.

“Because the political relationship between Australia and Indonesia isn’t good, it doesn’t mean that Indonesian’s stop sending their children to Australian universities, likewise it doesn’t mean that Australians stop going to Bali.

“So, the relationship between people-to-people and business-to-business is always stronger and steadier than the government-to-government relationship,” Fauzi Ichsan said.

CAUSINDY is looking forward to hearing more of his unique views on the bilateral economic and trade relationship between Australia and Indonesia!

CAUSINDY is thrilled to announce Prodita Sabarani, the Jakarta editor of The Conversation will be speaking at ‘Transforming the relationship’, a special Q&A event. She will be joining Dewi Fortuna Anwar, Senior Advisor to the Vice President of Indonesia and Professor Tim Lindsey, Chairman of Australia-Indonesia Institute, to form a very exciting and insightful panel.

In 2011, Prodita Sabarini received the Australian Development scholarship to study a Master’s degree in Human Rights Law and Policy at the University of New South Wales. Her time in Sydney saw her work featured in The Australian, New Matilda, and broadcast on Sydney’s 2SER.

She believes forming stronger people-to-people links is the key to strengthening the bilateral relationship between Australia and Indonesia.

“The relationship between Australia and Indonesia should move beyond issues that are driven by State interest. We should instead focus on personal relationships that can build understanding between the two cultures and foster partnerships that would benefit the peoples of the two countries. Many Indonesians and Australians see each other as strangers divided by language, culture and borders. If we can see past the differences, there are great potential in partnerships in different areas such as education and research; arts and culture; as well as human rights and social justice,” Prodita Sabarini said.

Prior to her role now, she worked as an investigative reporter for the English daily newspaper, The Jakarta Post. Prodita’s experience in reporting human rights issues has landed her the title as the 2013-2014 Elizabeth Neuffer Fellow. The fellowship by the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) is a program dedicated to “promoting international understanding of human rights and social justice while creating an opportunity for women journalists to build their skills.”

As the Elizabeth Neuffer fellow, she has been an associate researcher at MIT’s Center for International Studies. She also attended classes in Harvard and MIT to study the root causes of religious intolerance and violence. Part of her fellowship also saw her contribute to The Boston Globe and The New York Times.

CAUSINDY looks forward to drawing from her expert knowledge on human rights and social justice at the special Q&A event, ‘Transforming the Relationship’.

Yose Rizal, the founder of PoliticaWave, a social media platform that is currently monitoring this year’s presidential elections in Indonesia, will be joining CAUSINDY as a speaker on the ‘Election Debrief’ panel. His expertise in analysing social media trends toward national and regional political issues will bring great insight to the discussion.

Yose Rizal is the founder of Media Wave, an Indonesian social media monitoring, measurement and analytics platform. He also founded PoliticaWave, a poll analytical platform for the up coming Indonesian elections. He has over 10 years of experience in information technology, designing websites, management information systems and LAN/WAN for several government agencies, military and banking.

He brings expert knowledge and experience as an entrepreneur in technology combined with management and technology, which has made him one of the pioneers in the field of mobile advertising in Indonesia. In 2010, he worked with Snoop Mobile Media to integrate digital marketing across all its platforms.

Yose Rizal studied Urban & Regional Planning at the Bandung Institute of Technology.

About PoliticaWave

There are millions of conversations that take place everyday on social media. Social media tells us a lot about what the people really think, feel and want. This allows policy makers to understand what its voters really want. But it’s so hard to keep track of social trends with so much contact activity online now a days. This is where PoliticaWave has come in to help!

PoliticaWave is a platform that systematically monitors conversations happening on social media related to various national and regional political issues. The aim of PoliticaWave is to allow policymakers to get the latest information on public trends direct from social media activity patterns.

PoliticaWave analysis of the Jokowi and Prabowo campaigns.

PoliticaWave collects data in real time from various sources including Facebook, Twitter, blogs on CNN, Time Magazine, Kaskus and many other blog sites. Then it summarises the nature of social media trends into visual charts that make it easy for the public to understand. It offers analysis on various conversations taking place of certain topics – for instance the name of political figures, political issues or political campaigns.

It is CAUSINDY’s pleasure to announce that Bapak Arif Zulkifli, Chief Editor of Tempo Magazine, will be joining the media panel session at the conference.

Tempo Magazine is an investigative news magazine covering politics and economics in Indonesia since 1971, which was at one pointed banned by New Order Information Minister Harmoko as a “threat” to national stability. The publication resumed after Suharto’s departure from office.

Arif Zulkifli became the Chief Editor of Tempo Magazine in November 2012, making him the youngest editor in the magazine’s history. Arif’s strong presence on social media and his expert knowledge on investigative journalism in Indonesia will provide CAUSINDY with a unique perspective into the ‘Portrayals in the Media’ session.

Arif Zulkifli says the nature of journalism today is very different to the pre-reformasi period:

“Ada perbadaan yang significan antara kita berkerja sebagai wartawan dulu sebelum reformasi dengan sekarang. Kalau dulu itu, susah sekali kita cari informasi karena powernya itu di satu orang jadi tidak ada yang berani kasih bocoran-bocoran gitu. Kalau sekarang, semua orang mau ngomong, semua orang mau kasih info. Problemnya bagaimana kita menverifikasi data-data itu,” kata Arif.

“There is a significant difference between working as a journalist before the reformation period and working now. In the past it was difficult for journalist to find information because one person held the power, so no one was brave enough to leak any information. But now, everyone was to say something, everyone wants to spread information. The problem now is, how we verify mass information,” Arif said.

CAUSINDY looks forward to hearing Arif speak more this September.

CAUSINDY is pleased to announce that Citra Dyah Prastuti, the Editor of KBR’s online platform PortalKBR.com, will be joining the conference panel on ‘Portrayals in the Media’.

Citra spent some time in Australia on a fellowship with ABC Radio National, where her reporting has included an insightful one-hour long radio documentary on ‘Timor’s Lost Generation’, broadcast in 2012.

‘Timor’s Lost Generation’ gave a unique perspective into the legacy behind East Timorese children who were taken from their families during of Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor. The moving program takes listeners on a journey with those belonging to the lost generation of East Timorese returning to find their families and reconnecting with their lost heritage.

Citra’s passion for journalism has led her to pursue stories on issues of tolerance and pluralism in Indonesia. Now, she leads KBR’s online news website PortalKBR.com. She believes it is important to boost the public’s understanding about cultural and religious differences in Indonesia.

“It’s a super important issue for Indonesia, but not many mainstream media [outlets] are [talking about] this issue too much,” she said.

CAUSINDY looks forward to hearing Citra Dyah Prastuti’s thoughts and perspectives on the media panel session held on the 14thof September. As the power of media in Australia and Indonesia has the potential to influence public perceptions, with Citra’s input the discussion at the CAUSINDY media panel session will surely be an insightful one.