Author: Bryan Andati (Page 2 of 2)

Southeast Asia specialist, professor Arnout van der Meer spoke on the origins of National identity in Indonesia. His approach to the subject was outstanding as he did not assume any pre-existing knowledge of Southeast Asia among the crowd. He summarized the historical background of the region and credited scholars who are currently focused on telling Southeast Asia’s story as a main highlight as opposed to as a side show while covering India and China. He affirmed that the region is culturally and geographically connected.  van der Meer defended the stereotype that Southeast Asia only came alive with the arrival of the Europeans to its shores arguing that trade, culture, civilization and religion already existed long before European arrival.  Southeast Asia experienced cultural heritage (up until 1400 BCE) that involved state  formations and the Austronesian migrations and Indianization of the region. It also experienced the Age of Commerce that brought different religions to its lands such as Islam, Buddhism and Christianity. All these led to the colonial interlude that lasted from 1700-1945.  The region later witnessed colonialism, imperialism and plantation economies.

Opening of trade routes between Europe and Asia sparked up the interest in Southeast Asia. Eurasian civilizations pre-existed but there was limited interactions due to geographical barriers as suggested by Arnout . Southeast Asia is a region that,  as a whole has no common religion, language, or classical culture. Paradoxically however, the diversity of Southeast Asia and its openness to outside influences were among its defining characteristics. Every state in the region was built on cultural trade-offs both internal and external.” Today, modern Southeast Asia considered one of the most diverse regions of the world.

Different parts of Southeast Asia tend to have a variety of both economic and cultural niches. The complex societies call for the region to be treated as a separate ‘entity’ and not as extension to ‘mainstream’ Asia. Scholars are eager to uncover more facts about the region. This far in to Southeast Asian studies it is justified to say that the common commercial and cultural inheritance are major factors that unify the region. The cultures are inseparable, the norms share commonality, the dominant societal institutions are similar. Bordered by open seas and fragile to invasion, their lifestyles sprung from common roots.

Colonial Java was under the Dutch’s rule,  in search of the origins of national identity in Indonesia, revolution leader Soemarsono inspired the citizens to seek independence. He gave a remarkable speech that is still told in Indonesia today, Soemarsono insisted that only native Indonesians could liberate the country. He sparked socio-political emancipation of the Javanese. This sociological revolution can be considered the origins of a national awakening.

Professor Vittorio Loreto came to make a very strong argument concerning his research on the rates of innovation in the world.  He instantly grabbed everybody’s attention by displaying and a word quiz prediction game that he openly invited everybody to participate.  His choice of introduction i have to say was undoubtedly captivating as the rules behind the game matched the argument that he later presented. The word puzzle game seemed to be quite easy in the earlier stages but gradually became more challenging in terms of the actual final sentence completion tasks. Vittorio proved a point before he even laid out evidience on the table.  He later proceeded to reflect on an activity that majority of the audience had participated in at least once in their lifetime in some sort of way – gambling. Loreto claimed that gambling in itself involved serious levels of complexity. He took it to another level by illustrating the mathematical probabilities that go behind the actual decision of a bet arguing that the complexity of such a phenomena can never fully be revealed.

Professor Loreto’s research mainly highlighted the rates of innovation in the world.  He agrees that our ever changing world requires uttermost innovation.  He examines the stages it takes for an innovation to actually be finalized and concludes that it is through the process of mutation, fixation and trial and error that finally an idea can successfully be transformed into an innovation.  He termed innovation as the “new.” He articulated that the journey to attain a successful innovation is only archived through looking at the future with eyes of the past.  He introduced the concept of modelling schemes and gave an example weather pattern predictions. The only way meteorologists today are able to give a weather forecast is through historical data analysis to be able to approximate upcoming conditions. He persisted that  by disregarding historical content in any sphere of research, an innovation is most likely to fail.

In his research however, he discourages this trend of modelling schemes to come up with new innovations and blames the method for what he saw as a decrease in innovation.  Loreto focused his research of Tech case studies such as Last.fm, Twitter, and Wikipedia to prove his argument. Loreto ranted out the patents in today’s world are slowing down progress. He believes that without patents we would be witnessing a tremendous amount of fantastic innovations but due to what he termed as greed he alluded that that would not be possible. Loreto presented solid arguments that i begged to disagree with some. He believes that the world is witnessing slower rates of innovation and i tend to think the opposite. Take for example his own case study of Twitter, Twitter as a social media platform cannot be traced to the past decade but look at how transformative it has been to today’s society.  I think’s Loreto’s research is much needed and would be more revealing if he used recent innovation companies, apps, drugs and even machines.