TERM OF REFERENCE - Asian African Students Conference 2015

BANDUNG, APRIL 29TH - MAY 2ND 2015
TERM OF REFERENCE
Leadership to promote the Asian-African cultural values
Introduction
Culture is foundation of human civilization. Van Peursen sees culture as ‘the school of humanity’
to repair the ongoing civilization, which by nature is something that goes on without ending. The
highest degree of culture is embodied within a virtue of respecting other humans, either as an
individual or a part of community. It is no surprise that, in this phase, people of Asia and Africa
adapt the culture of mutual cooperation. They put aside their own interest and together they
collaborate to create welfare amongst them.
In addition, respecting humans also means respecting nature as the place where humans live.
Cultured humans are those capable of building their own culture based on nature’s sustainability.
Besides, nature also contributes to give nuance on the identity of humans’ civilization, which is
authentic and unique.
Along with the emergence of colonialism, this value-based culture in Asia and Africa is gradually
forgotten. Decades or even centuries of colonialism have made people of Asia and Africa loses
their cultural identity. Even after claiming their independence, Asian and African countries still
experience culture degradation.
In the era of globalization and modernism, the new generations of Asian and African people
frequently face the crisis of cultural identity. They often adopt some new concepts which contain
less of tolerance. It time, these concepts will bring various conflicts, either with other humans or
with nature and environment.
Rebuilding Asian and African cultural values means rebuilding Asian and African nations which
highly value peace uphold humanity. Not only it directly affects the relationship among humans,
it also influences the relationship between humans and their environment. In time, these cultural
values will be able to reinforce education and economic structure of society, so that prosperity
can be achieved.
Goals
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To build a repository of Asian and African local culture values.
To reinvigorate the Asian and African cultural values in their society.
To develop local cultural values in a global context.
To develop local cultural values to create a strategic plan on the issue of climate change.
Scope of problems
 How do we build a repository for Asian and African local culture values?
 How do we reinvigorate the Asian and African cultural values in the society?
 How do we develop the local cultural values in the global context?
 How do we develop the local cultural values to create a strategic plan on the issue of
climate change?
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Leadership to promote the inclusive education
Introduction
Growth of a country depends on the quality of its people. This is in line with Plato's idea,
asserting that a country is a super-sized human. Furthermore, he adds that we cannot expect a
country to get better if the quality of its people is not developed. In this case, the process of
developing humans’ good values and characters needs to be taken through education. A country
can be developed when it can accommodate its people with educations relevant to the current era
without ignoring its national identity.
Education, besides making human know about theirselves, must be able to encourage them to
contribute to the development of the world. Unfortunately, according to Ivan Illich (1970),
education is frequently used as a medium for capitalism to produce a new class of workers.
Ironically, what is currently needed by people of Asia and Africa is the education which can be
liberating and emancipating.
Liberating means that education has to be able to set humans free humans from any form of neocolonialism-imperialism. Meanwhile, emancipating means that education has to be able to
stimulate self-potential, so that the pride of being Asian-African people can be achieved.
Based on the explanations above, it can be seen that we need a kind of education that does not
only give us knowledge, but also independency, perseverance, and creativity based on local
wisdom. In time, it will give birth to a new generation capable of contributing to the resolution of
society problems.
More importantly, education has to be accessible for everyone. In this context, education does
not always have to be formal, but also informal in the forms of family and society. Being
comprehensive, holistic, and inclusive, education will be able to construct a collective awareness
to make the country better.
Goals
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To raise the awareness of Asian and African people toward the importance of education.
To build the inclusive education for Asian and Africa people.
To build the education capable of making emancipating and liberating humans.
To build the education based on local wisdom of Asia and Africa.
Scope of problems
 How do we raise the awareness of Asian and African people toward the importance of
education?
 How do we build the inclusive education for Asian and Africa people?
 How do we build the education which is capable of making emancipating and liberating
humans?
 How do we build the education based on local wisdom of Asia and Africa?
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Leadership to promote the sociopreneurship
Introduction
One factor that can boost economic growth of a country is the availability of entrepreneurs who
focus on resolving social problems. These entrepreneurs are often called sociopreneurs. They are
society's support to cope with social and economic problems. This means that sociopreneurs
build the spirit of mutual cooperation to create a harmony in society.
A sociopreneur has to possess qualities of an entrepreneur. Everett Hagen (1975) identifies
entrepreneur as a hardworking, self-sufficient, problem solving, and innovative figure. David
McClelland (1961) also adds risk taking and thinking ahead to the list of entrepreneur qualities.
The difference between entrepreneur and sociopreneur is not solely based on sociopreneur's noncommercial principle of organization. Sociopreneur also takes part in solving society problems
and empowering them into self-governance and independent state.
Nowadays, Asia and Africa are in need of sociopreneurs. This is because people of Asia and
Africa have problems in a wide context, including culture, social, and economic. In this case,
sociopreneurs are expected to be able to solve these problems in a local or hyper-local scope.
Meanwhile, the main actors will be the students and young people who have the big potential to
become Asia and Africa new sociopreneurs.
On the other hand, society has a big role in helping the sociopreneurs. The example is by giving
financial support through the spirit of cooperation and togetherness. This not only helps
entrepreneurs financially but also encourages them to devote to the society.
Goals
 To give birth to new generation of sociopreneurs from students and young people from
Asia and Africa.
 To encourage sociopreneurs to optimize Asia and Africa economic state based on local
wisdom.
 To build the scheme of society-based capital for sociopreneurs.
Scope of problems
 How can the new generation of sociopreneurs from Asia and Africa students and young
people can be born?
 How do we encourage sociopreneurs to optimize Asia and Africa economic state based
on local wisdom?
 How do we build the scheme of society-based capital for sociopreneurs?
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Leadership to promote the function of media as a pillar of
democratization process
Introduction
Democracy is defined as a political process which involves people as its actor. Within democracy
people is given freedom to voice their opinion and contribute to the country system with the hope
of reaching the welfare.
In this context, media play an important role in building people's political awareness. Bill
Covach states that media have to be able to provide information needed by people so that they
can live in freedom and control themselves. In time, their free life and the freedom to control
theirselves will be needed to sustain democracy's health.
In the era of the internet, people can build their own media. This will make it easier for people to
construct information that can give positive impacts to their free life and their ability to control
themselves. The key to this is to utilize technology and information devices wisely and
positively.
Nevertheless, media is like a double-edged sword as it may bring not only positive, but also
negative impacts.
One of negative impacts is the deliberate action to make particular public opinion. In any case,
media are never neutral. They have tendency toward many things, including economic and
political bias. This subjectivity has potential to destroy democracy in a country.
Another negative impact is the emergence of hoaxes along with the increased number of people
interacting in internet. Hoax has potential to trigger conflict, either it is horizontally or vertically.
Hoax also influences the flow of positive information for society. There is a concern that this
attitude may disturb the health of the democracy.
Meanwhile, information technology that grows without media literacy has the potential to entrap
society into excessive consumerism. Instead of using it as means of self-development, it is feared
that technology will be used to waste the time without increasing society's life quality. One
possible impact is that intolerance toward environment may develop. In certain situations, this
attitude may ignite conflict which disturbs democracy's stability.
Goals
 To develop the media literacy of Asian and African people.
 To encourage media in Asia and Africa to serve public as well as possible so that they can
act as the fourth pillar to democracy.
 To empower technology to increase the awareness of Asian and African people toward
politic, social, cultural, and economic issue.
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Scope of problems
 How do we develop the media literacy of Asian and African people?
 How do we encourage media in Asia and Africa to serve public as well as possible so that
they can act as the fourth pillar to democracy?
 How do we empower technology to increase the awareness of Asian and African people
toward politic, social, cultural, and economic issue?
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Leadership to promote the Open Source for the
digital independence in Asia-Africa
Introduction
In this digital era, information and communication technology are amongst the most important
aspects in the life of people of Asia and Africa. Modern people in both continents have high
dependency to digital equipment in every aspect of their lives, starting from smallest thing such
as counting and communicating, to significant works such as transportation and banking.
Nevertheless, technology mastery is still being dominated by developed countries, which
majorities are in Europe or America. The mastery is manifested in every production process line,
starting from development, designing, to assembly and marketing.
In this case, most people of Asia and Africa are only able to be observer and costumer of those
digital products. They do not have the will, skill, and access to develop such technology by
theirselves. In time, countries that possess such technological mastery will be able to dictate their
lives. Furthermore, they also have the access to the database of people of Asia and Africa who
are valuable in terms of social matter, politic, and economy.
Strengthening autonomy in terms of digital technology will potentially increase the power of
people in Asia and Africa in the digital era. One way to do so is by building open-source-based
independent digital products.
Open Source Software (OSS) itself is a type of software developed together by software
developers from all over the world. The advantage of using OSS is that the software's source
core can be accessed freely by public. Even though open by nature, this kind of software is safer
than closed source software. Besides, public can directly audit the software so that it cannot be
attacked by irresponsible parties.
It is unfortunate that not many developers are interested in building open-source-based software.
Moreover, society also thinks that OSS is not interesting and technologically bad. This
contributes to people's lack of awareness to the usage of open-source-based software.
Goals
 To raise the awareness of people of Asia and Africa to use open-source-based software.
 To increase the skill of people of Asia and Africa in operating open-source-based
software.
 To encourage production and development of open-source-based software in Asia and
Africa.
 To optimize open-source-based software to fulfill the needs of people of Asia and Africa.
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Scope of problems
 How do we raise the awareness of people of Asia and Africa to use open-source-based
software?
 How do we increase the skill of people of Asia and Africa in operating open-source-based
software?
 How do we encourage production and development of open-source-based software in
Asia and Africa?
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How do we optimize open-source-based software to fulfill the needs of people of Asia
and Africa?
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Leadership to promote the Asian-African
student global network
Introduction
The era of globalization is marked by a wide network spread between Asia and Africa, including
their students. Communicating through information technology made students of Asia and Africa
live in global village. Inside of it, it is hoped that there will be positive interaction and mutual
construction between the two great nations.
In student context, global village will make cooperation easier, especially in education, culture,
social, and sport. This cooperation is also hoped to be able to build deeper attitude and studies on
nationalism, neo-colonialism, post-colonialism, and equality for growth which are based on the
Bandung Spirit.
Asia and Africa students’ cooperation in global network has been agreed in Asian-African
Students Conference in 1956. In that conference, the students agreed to contribute to world peace
and to uphold human values through academic. In time, they are able to proof their contribution
to their respective countries and the world.
In today context, the cooperation between Asia and Africa students is still relevant and influential
in global level. Students have significantly contributed to the world in a way no one had ever
imagined. As a continuation to Asian-African Students Conference in 1956, students need to
define and reinforce cooperation based on Bandung Spirit and in today context. Through this, it
is hoped that quality humans who are free and able to lead Asia-Africa on its journey will be
born.
Goals
 To build the cooperation and contribution of Asia-Africa students in global and today’s
context based on Bandung Spirit.
 To build research-and-study cooperation in various subjects in Asia-Africa context by
using neo-colonialism, post-colonialism, and equality for growth as the focus.
 To develop global networking to compile strategic plan in context of illegal drugs.
Scope of problems
 How do we build Asia-Africa students cooperation and contribution in global and today
context based on Bandung Spirit?
 How do we build the research and study cooperation in various subjects in Asia-Africa
context by using neo-colonialism, post-colonialism, and equality for growth?
 How do we develop global networking to compile strategic plan in context of illegal
drugs?
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