CAUSINDY starts this Saturday. Join in!

CAUSINDY 2015 is just around the corner! This year, the conference isn’t just happening in Darwin: we’ll be sharing tweets, updates and photos throughout the event.

Join us right here on the CAUSINDY website, where we’ll be publishing a live blog with all the highlights from this year’s panel sessions.

On Twitter, we’ll be sharing updates on #causindy along with our delegates and speakers — and don’t forget to check out our Instagram account, where a different delegate will be sharing their perspective on the conference every day.

We’ll be sharing photo highlights on the CAUSINDY Facebook page, too. Don’t miss it.

Live events in Sydney, Melbourne and Jakarta

It’s your chance to take part in CAUSINDY 2015! For the first time, we’re opening this year’s conference up to live audiences in three cities.

Register for the event →

Going Back to the Beginning is all about the links between indigenous Australia and Indonesia, bringing together three experts to present — and answer questions — on the origins of the bilateral relationship.

AIYA chapters will be showing the panel live from Darwin in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane from 3pm on Saturday, the 19th of September.

Join in →

Audiences will be able to share questions and comments with the delegates and panel on #causindy.

Speakers

Paul Thomas — Coordinator of Indonesian Studies, Monash University

saya4Paul Thomas is Coordinator of Indonesian Studies and lecturer in Translation Studies in the School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics at Monash University, Victoria. His initial interest in Indonesia began as a participant on the Australian Indonesian Youth Exchange Program (AIYEP) after which he majored in Indonesian and Italian in his undergraduate degree. Upon graduating, Paul moved to Southeast Asia teaching in Bandung, Indonesia and Singapore where he also worked as a freelance translator.

On returning to Australia, he took up tertiary teaching positions in South Australia and then Victoria while completing a Masters in Applied Linguistics at the University of Melbourne. Paul’s PhD was in the field of translation history and explored the history of communication between Australia and the Indonesian archipelago from the pre-European period through to the Cold War.

Paul is currently researching the history of the English language press in Indonesia and is completing an edited volume on the history of the Indonesian-Malay language in Australia entitled Talking North: History, Literacy and Policy in Australia’s First Asian Language due for publication later this year.

Dr Steven Farram — Lecturer in North Australian and Regional Studies (History) at Charles Darwin University
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Dr Steven Farram is Lecturer in North Australian and Regional Studies (History) at Charles Darwin University in Darwin. His research interests include the history of northern Australia and Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia and Timor-Leste. He has published extensively in these areas and is also a regular contributor of book and exhibition reviews to various journals. Steven is an active member of the history community through organisations such as the Professional Historians Association (NT) and the Historical Society of the Northern Territory. He is a regular participant at international and local conferences and has been coordinator of the Annual History Colloquium held in Darwin for several years.

Julia Martínez — Associate Professor of History at University of Wollongong

Julia Martinez photo 2015Julia Martínez is an Associate Professor of History and Australian Research Council Future Fellow at University of Wollongong, NSW. Her interests include Australian and Asian history and in particular the connections between Darwin, Broome, north Queensland and Asia. She publishes on Indigenous and Asian labour history and on Chinese diaspora in Australia and Southeast Asia.

Her ARC-funded projects include a history on the migration and ‘traffic’ in women in Australia and Southeast Asia and a study of colonial domestic service with Claire Lowrie, Victoria Haskins, & Frances Steel. In 2013 she co-edited with Professor Adrian Vickers a special edition of the SOAS journal Indonesia and the Malay World on histories of overseas Indonesians. Her book, with Adrian Vickers, is The Pearl Frontier: Indonesian labor and Indigenous encounters in Australia’s Northern Trading Network (University of Hawai’i Press, 2015).

Current and former ministers join CAUSINDY

The CAUSINDY team is excited to announce two very special speakers: former Indonesian Vice Minister for Finance Mr Mahendra Siregar, and current the current Northern Territory Minister for Asia Engagement and Trade the Hon. Peter Styles MLA.

Mr Mahendra will be joining CAUSINDY as the keynote speaker at the Gala Dinner. Mr Mahendra currently serves on the boards of a number of companies and organisations, including the Australia Indonesia Centre and as the Chairman of the Board of Commissioners for PT Semen Indonesia, one of the country’s largest companies.

Mr Mahendra was Indonesian Vice Minister of Trade from 2009 until 2011, and later held the positions of Vice Minister of Finance from 2011 to 2013, and Chairman of the Investment Coordinating Board, BKPM, from 2013 to 2014.

Minister Styles will host a private lunch for the delegates at Northern Territory’s Parliament House. Mr Styles is the Minister for Asian Engagement and Trade, Business and Multicultural Affairs, amongst other portfolios.

Before entering parliament in 2008, he was an officer in the Northern Territory Police Force, where his work with youth in schools and in the community focussed on helping young people to achieve their full potential.

Mr Mahendra and Minister Styles join a diverse and experienced roster of speakers, which includes senior representatives from business, government, and academia.

Delegates selected for CAUSINDY 2015

Today, the CAUSINDY team are excited to announce the thirty delegates who will be joining us for our third conference in Darwin this year.

The Conference of Australian and Indonesian Youth is an initiative of the Australia-Indonesia Youth Association or AIYA, with our hosting sponsor Northern Territory Government and our other sponsors Australia Awards, Australia National University, RMIT, University of New South Wales, University of Sydney Southeast Asia Centre and Corrs Chambers Westgarth.

This year’s delegate group is one of our most diverse yet, bringing together young leaders in fields from law, communications and journalism to academia and public policy. The number and depth of applications this year was larger than ever.

Meet this year’s delegates:
Indonesia → Australia →

In 2015, delegates will be directly engaging with the history of the relationship, under the theme Going Back to the Beginning: From Indigenous Trade to Modern Day. The conference program will include panel discussions, social and networking events around Darwin.

Stay tuned for more news on public events this September!

The Australian National University to sponsor CAUSINDY 2015

The Conference of Australian and Indonesian Youth (CAUSINDY) is pleased to welcome the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific as an official sponsor of CAUSINDY 2015.

As the region’s intellectual hub for interdisciplinary expertise on Asia and the Pacific, ANU is home to the largest number of Indonesian scholars outside of Indonesia.

We are excited to announce that as part of this collaboration, Associate Professor Greg Fealy will join the program as a speaker at CAUSINDY 2015. Assoc Prof Fealy is an internationally renowned expert on Indonesian politics and Islam, and the director of the Australian government funded Partnership in the Islamic Education Scholarships (PIES) program.

ANU has supported CAUSINDY since 2013. We thank ANU for their ongoing support and look forward to welcoming ANU alumni, students and staff as CAUSINDY delegates at the conference in Darwin.

Makassar to Darwin: Going back to the beginning

CAUSINDY is going back to where it all began…

Over the last two years, the future of the Australia-Indonesia relationship has been a recurring theme for CAUSINDY – but it’s not often that we reflect on where it all started.

This year, CAUSINDY’s theme is Going Back to the Beginning: From Indigenous Trade to Modern Day.

Working with our hosting sponsor, the Northern Territory Government, and conference partner the Consul of Indonesia, we’re excited to announce that CAUSINDY 2015 will take place this September in Darwin, the capital of Australia’s Northern Territory.

More information →

Australians and Indonesians have been in contact for hundreds of years, with first contact between Makassarese and indigenous Australians placed somewhere around the 17th or 18th century.

This year, we’ll be discussing indigenous Australia’s long history with Indonesia — as well as the state of the relationship today, after a turbulent start to the year. But it’s not all history: we’ll also talk about new opportunities, from agriculture to technology and renewable energy.

CAUSINDY is also pleased to announce that Consul of Indonesia in Darwin, Andre Omer Siregar, will host an intimate dinner for delegates at his residence during the conference.

This year is your opportunity to join this conversation: applications to become a delegate are now open.

Take part →

CAUSINDY returns in 2015

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Delegates on the first night of CAUSINDY 2014, Jakarta.

New ideas, new speakers — and a brand new location. The Conference of Australian and Indonesian Youth, CAUSINDY, returns to Australia this year, and we’re looking forward to our biggest conference yet.

Already, CAUSINDY delegates are writing the next chapter of Australia-Indonesia relations — in a diverse set of fields from the media to finance.

Delegates from CAUSINDY 2013 during their tour of Canberra.
Delegates from CAUSINDY 2013 during their tour of Canberra.

This year’s conference is set to take place in mid-September. Once again, we’ll be bringing together 30 young leaders from Australia and Indonesia to discuss the big issues in the bilateral relationship with high profile speakers in business, government and academia.

After successful events in Canberra and Jakarta, this year CAUSINDY will take place in a brand new location — keep an eye out for the announcement.

Applications for this year’s conference will open in late May.

You can also stay in the loop on conference news and events by following CAUSINDY on Facebook and Twitter.