Daily Archives: January 2, 2024

Activities report by Karen Anne;

1. June 21, 2023

During the first day of the program, most of the participants including me have arrived in Singapore before 4:00 PM (GMT +8). Everyone is responsible to come to the hotel on their preferred transportation. The organizers have included ways on how to come to the hotel coming from the Changi Airport of Singapore. Hence, the program organizers did not include much activities on the first day as others came from the European countries. At 5:00 PM, most of the navigators arrived in V Hotel Bencoleen and was welcomed by the ASEF Team including Miss Freya Chow Paul and Miss Reka Tozsa. During the evening, the ASEF hosted a welcoming dinner in YWCA Café Lodge near the hotel to formally welcome everyone in Singapore. Furthermore, Miss Freya have also provided us the train cards to use as our transportation in going to several destinations included in the program.

2. June 22, 2023

Moving forward to the second day of the program, the official start of the navigators training transpired in the ASEF Office near National University Singapore. During the second day, we have the opportunity to meet and hear inspiring words from Mr. Toru Morikawa the executive director of the ASEF, Miss Reka Tozsa, the director for education department and Ms. Freya Chow-Paul the program coordinator of the education department of ASEF. In the second day of the program, the ASEF invited Mr. Anand Chandrasekar, a leadership solutions specialist in in Center for Creative leadership. During the program, Mr. Anand tackle about defining leadership and how to handle diverse group, practicing how to listen and create a space for everyone to voice out their opinions. Additionally, Mr. Anand also tackle how to effectively delegate tasks to the team and setting healthy boundaries on accepting the necessary workload and lessening the tasks that we do not need to prioritize. Furthermore, he have also provided talks regarding accountability and keeping everyone intact during the program and how to lead a group that we are handling. During the training program, he also had several activities to further nourish us with the wisdom and practice the insights together as a navigator of the program. To wrap up the second day, the ASEF team toured us around the Marina Bay and Gardens by the Bay during the evening to explore Singapore outside of our training and enjoy the whole stay there.

3. June 23, 2023

During the third day of the program, the ASEF team provided us a background on the topic that we will be talking about during the actual summit. During this day, Dr. Paul Wang of NEC Asia Pacific Pte Ltd, talked about the concept of Society 5.0, which is coined by the Japanese wherein we see the future generation run forward by the technology. During the third day, we had an opportunity to have a roundtable dialogue about 5.0 with Ms. Geraldine LAM, the CEO of Social Impact Catalyst, Miss Liana Tang, Director of Digital Strategy Office in Ministry of Communications and Information in Singapore. The roundtable dialogue was moderated by Mr. Michael Klemm, the founder and managing director of Singapore Education Network. During the roundtable dialogue, the speakers discussed about future proofing society and tackling the role of technology in addressing social challenges, establishing multisector collaboration and providing solutions with the help of technology and the roles of the civil society in the Society 5.0.

Precedingly after lunch, we had the opportunity to have Junior-Senior Leadership Dialogues with the ASEF Governors including Ms. Angela Robinson, Australian High Commission in Singapore, Ambassador Colette Taquet, Embassy of Belgium in Singapore, High Commissioner Rukhsana Afzaal of Pakistan, Ambassador Michaela Fronkova of Czech Republic, Ambassador Judit Pach of Hungary, Ms. Jenny Egermark of Embassy of Sweden in Singapore and Mr. Joel Henri Brunner of Embassy of Switzerland in Singapore. During the Junior-Senior leadership dialogue, all of us navigators had an opportunity to discuss the qualities that we look for in a leader, the role of technology in society and sharing the insights of the current situation of our countries and how much are we willing to accept technology in our present needs and innovations of the respective countries as well.

4. June 24, 2023

On the fourth day of the program, the ASEF team invited Mr. Henrik Pap from the Organization Development Consultant, wherein he discussed about Design Thinking or also known as Design4x. During his session, there were a lot of training sessions where it allowed me to think effectively on how to launch a program or a product that we might want to launch for an organization. It taught us to be patient and further train ourselves to be very specific in what we want and the goals we wanted to achieve. During the whole session, we have observed what works and what does not work in collaborating with other nationalities, most especially those coming from the other region. The program was effective when it comes to dealing with pressure and creating a concept or project ideas and how to further develop it in the upcoming steps.

5. June 25, 2023

At the last day of the training program, the ASEF Organizers hosted a cultural facilitation for the navigators to further understand each other with regards to values and norms our respective country has. It allowed us to learn more about the cultural differences of our country and shared a deep connection with everyone as we get to understand them in a deeper sense. The program ended at 12:00 and everyone was set to departure back to their countries or to their respective errands.

III. Inclusion of the package for the participants

Travel Package and Insurance.
As for the inclusions of the package for the navigators, the ASEF provided the following

• Hotel Accommodation (June 21-25). All of us shared the twin bedroom with fellow navigators as well. Furthermore, the ASEF made sure that we will be sharing with the same gender and would be coming from the opposite region. Hence, I was staying in the room with a navigator from Austria.
• The navigators were also provided the round trip flights to Singapore and a travel insurance. Furthermore, they also allotted allowance for the transportation from Changi Airport to Hotel and vice versa. Additionally, the lunch and coffee breaks in between the program are covered by the ASEF Team. Some dinners were also hosted by the ASEF team but not all of it.
• The ASEF Team have also provided us train cards with allowance that are already sufficient for the travel destinations that we will be visiting during the said days.