Digital solutions are increasingly important for businesses, but mentorship and networking to advance entrepreneurs’ knowledge aren’t always accessible. On April 24, Go Digital ASEAN’s speaker series Explore Digital is hosting a free virtual event titled “Leveraging Digital Solutions for Business Resilience.”
Join us as we discuss digital strategies and tools for long-term growth and hear stories of resilience from two founders who navigated hardships in scaling their businesses online.
Featuring
Gina Romero, Founder of Connected Women Hadi Othman, Founder of Blanja
Go Digital ASEAN is an initiative under the Future Skills Alliance, a broad coalition of partners from both the public and private sectors working together to deliver future skills at scale to the region’s most marginalized.
As AI expands, The Asia Foundation is exploring its ethical applications and potential for social impact. Our STEM ConnectHER Speaker Series, hosted with Cisco, will discuss how AI and data collection can be pivotal in saving endangered species and how your everyday photos can contribute to global biodiversity efforts. Join us for a free event to learn how to ethically utilize AI for social impact.
Featuring
Dr. Tanya Berger-Wolf, Director, Translational Data Analytics Institute, Professor, The Ohio State University Dr. Elizabeth Bondi-Kelly, Professor, University of Michigan, President & Founder, Non-profit for Social Impact Try AI
Women are critical to achieving sustainable peace and can play a significant role in peacebuilding and security efforts globally. Women leaders are important actors in peace processes and peacebuilding, and ensuring their equal and meaningful participation in these efforts is crucial. Across Asia and globally, there are many examples of women’s contributions to peace processes.
In the Philippines, the Government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front signed the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro to end nearly four decades of intermittent violent civil conflict in Mindanao. The centerpiece of the agreement was the decision to create the Bangsamoro, a new autonomous entity in Mindanao and a homeland of the Moro people. A strong movement of Bangsamoro women played a crucial role in leading efforts to secure peace in Mindanao, and they’ve continued playing a vital role in the formation of the new Bangsamoro Constitution, Parliament, and government. The Asia Foundation has supported these efforts during the peace process and is now supporting sustainable economic development and strategies to strengthen social cohesion and sustain peace in the region.
Please join The Asia Foundation to hear from key Bangsamoro women leaders representing this phenomenal movement for peace, justice, and prosperity in Mindanao.
Featuring
Opening remarks by Dr. Jennifer Hawkins, Acting Women, Peace and Security Director, Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues, U.S. Department of State Myn Garcia,Deputy Country Representative, The Asia Foundation, Philippines Chairperson Bainon G. Karon, Bangsamoro Women Commission; and Member of Parliament, Bangsamoro Transition Authority Atty. Sha Elijah B. Dumama-Alba, Floor Leader and Member of Parliament, Bangsamoro Transition Authority Engr. Aida M. Silongan, Minister of the Ministry of Science and Technology and Member of Parliament, Bangsamoro Transition Authority Jane Sloane, moderator, Senior Director, Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality, The Asia Foundation
6 PM – 8:30 PM PT and 9 AM – 11:30 AM Beijing (April 16)
To address the urgent need for U.S.-China collaboration toward a sustainable future, The Asia Foundation launched the 2030 Climate Champions Fellowship: Young Leaders for a Brighter U.S.-China Future. Now, as the Climate Champions from both nations conclude their fellowship journey, they’re set to present their work, including digital storytelling products and a Climate Action Plan.
Join us for a dual-streaming Zoom Forum on April 15th, 6 PM Pacific Time, and April 16th, 9 AM Beijing Time, as they share their findings from San Francisco and Beijing. Funded by the US Mission to China and in collaboration with the Chinese Association for NGO Cooperation, we are committed to paving the way for a sustainable future.
Featuring
The Asia Foundation’s American and Chinese 2030 Climate Champions.
Gender inequality in Asia and the Pacific is compounded by the current climate and environment crises, and the ever-evolving technology landscape in the region. The devastating socio-economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on women and girls who are at the frontlines, or are otherwise in vulnerable positions, set the region back by a generation in terms of achieving gender parity. Lingering issues remain around employment, loss of livelihoods, food hardship, and increased unpaid care and domestic workloads. The greater adoption of digital technologies spurred on by the pandemic has also led to increased sexual harassment and other forms of violence against women in online spaces.
The Asia Foundation’s decades-long engagement across Asia and the Pacific enables the Foundation to support effective, locally driven strategies to advance women’s empowerment, gender equality and social inclusion. We work with women’s, feminist, and youth networks in addition to governments across Asia and the Pacific to support women to lead in adaptation and risk reduction strategies focused on women’s economic empowerment, women’s and girls’ rights and security, and women’s political voice and leadership.
Join this in-person event with The Asia Foundation’s Senior Director for Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality Jane Sloane, who will provide an overview of the current challenges facing women and girls in Asia and the Pacific, while focusing on the Foundation’s work to address the gendered impacts of climate change and technology-facilitated violence.
Gender-based violence, specifically, violence against women and girls, and trafficking in persons, are pervasive occurrences that have seen a dramatic uptick in many countries due to conflict, climate change, Covid-19, and other ongoing conflicts and crises. Globally, one in three women experience physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime, mostly by an intimate partner, and 7 in 10 human trafficking victims are women and girls. Gender-based violence is mentally and/or physically devastating for survivors and has significant social and economic costs to survivors and their families. Cultures of violence erode the social and economic well-being and prosperity of communities and countries.
The Asia Foundation is a leader in supporting important community approaches to addressing gender-based violence and trafficking in Asia and the Pacific. This includes Timor-Leste, which has some of the highest rates of violence against women in the world. Data suggests that anywhere between 59% and 67% of women in Timor-Leste have experienced some form of intimate partner violence in their lifetime. Since 2014, The Asia Foundation’s Nabilan program (supported by the Australian Government) has been providing frontline service delivery, social norms change, and research to end violence against women and children in Timor-Leste. Nabilan partners with individuals, communities, activists, and institutions to foster gender equality and positive social norms to prevent violence. Thus far, thousands of clients have received legal, medical, psychosocial, and referral services.
Join The Asia Foundation’s gender experts to hear about programs that are having real impact in addressing gender-based violence and trafficking in Asia and the Pacific, and how approaches and strategies the Nabilan Program uses may be helpful as other countries grapple with violence against women.
Introductory remarks Emma Lee Wilson, Policy Advisor, International Development, Embassy of Australia, Washington, DC
Moderator Anna Bantug-Herrera, Director, Washington, D.C. Office, and Manager for Strategic Partnerships, The Asia Foundation
Featuring Héctor Salazar Salame, Country Representative, Timor-Leste, The Asia Foundation
Ankita Panda, Senior Program Officer, Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality, The Asia Foundation Xylia Ingham, Nabilan Program Team Leader, The Asia Foundation
Seating is limited. Registration is required for this in-person-only event.
PSU Native American Student and Community Center, 710 SW Jackson St, Portland
6:00 PM PT
Join international award-winning Lanna Tai community organizer and activist Khru Tee Niwat Roykaew for a dialogue with Columbia River people on why rivers matter. Khru Tee’s traditional knowledge bases of faith in human equality and respect for Nature challenge development assumptions about what a river is. As the Mekong undergoes rapid industrialization today, Columbia River people have experienced development in the form of big hydropower, timber, and agriculture for over 100 years. NGOs, local peoples’, and indigenous groups have organized to reclaim and redefine rivers and rights in both basins.
Please join in person or remotely to discuss what these two great world rivers and their people can learn from each other’s histories, what we have in common today, and how we can collaborate.
Featuring
Khru Tee Niwat Roykaew – Director of Mekong School and Mekong-Lanna Waterkeeper, Awarded the 2022 Goldman Environmental Prize and The Asia Foundation’s 2023 Chang-Lin Tien Distinguished Leadership Award for his work with communities across northern Thailand Dan Serres – Columbia Riverkeeper Advocacy Director Steven Hawley – Environmental journalist, author, filmmaker
Coalitions—groups of individuals and organizations that work together to pursue a common policy goal or reform—are crucial to the achievement of development outcomes. For years, coalition building has been the centerpiece of some of The Asia Foundation’s most successful development initiatives and the achievement of milestone policy reforms. In 2023, the Foundation sought to elevate interest and debate on this experience through its publication On the Right Tack: Reflections on Coalition-Building Initiatives Across The Asia Foundation, which examined examples from Bangladesh, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Timor-Leste. The paper sheds light on the coalition-building modality, sharing insights on how coalitions emerge and function and how the approach can be adapted for application in other contexts.
Please join us for a discussion of these and other experiences with development coalitions, the approaches taken by coalition leaders, the role of external actors in supporting coalition building, and questions and considerations that remain to be addressed.
Featuring
Nicola Nixon, Senior Director, Governance, The Asia Foundation and principal author, On the Right Tack; Thomas Parks, The Asia Foundation Country Representative, Thailand Melisha Ghimre, Co-Founder and Managing Director, Shequal Foundation, Nepal Toix Cerna, Civil Society Leader, Philippines Kim McQuay, moderator, Acting Head of Programs and Managing Director, Program Specialists Group, The Asia Foundation
by The Asia Foundation | September 13, 2023 | Events
Critical materials are the foundations of the technologies on which modern life depends. These metals and materials are crucial for a green transition because they are used in everything from electric vehicles to batteries and wind turbines, among other energy-efficient technologies. In June 2023, The Asia Foundation and the Perth USAsia Centre brought together specialists from the Republic of Korea, Australia, and the United States, representing industry, academia, and the think tank communities, to discuss trilateral opportunities to secure future energy resources, collaborative efforts to support the development and supply of critical materials and the challenges and risks of supply chain disruptions. This two-day discussion produced a report, What a Clean Energy Future Demands: Massive Shift in Global Supply Chains, Critical Materials with recommendations on how trilateral cooperation can help build scalable, sustainable, and secure supply chains needed to tackle one of today’s most significant global challenges. Join us for the release of the report.
Featuring
Gordon Flake, founding Chief Executive Officer, Perth USAsia Centre, The University of Western Australia
Dr. Adam Simon, Arthur F. Thurnau, Professor of Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of Michigan.
Dr. Kyungjin Song, Executive Director, Innovative Economy Forum
Stanford’s Amb. Scot Marciel, former Ambassador to Myanmar and Indonesia, will discuss prospects of a “new Cold War” and how to avert it with The Asia Foundation’s Country Representative in Thailand Thomas Parks. A long-time resident in Thailand, Parks will present themes from his brand-new book, Southeast Asia’s Multipolar Future: Averting a New Cold War, including the role of Thailand and other Southeast Asian nations in a world where US-China competition dominates news headlines.
Featuring
Thomas Parks, Country Representative, Thailand, and ASEAN program manager, The Asia Foundation Ambassador Scot Marciel, Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, US Ambassador to Indonesia from 2010 to 2013, and Myanmar from 2016 to 2020.
