Blog 16th of November by Sepvi, Dana and Laurence

On Wednesday, 16^th of November 2011

At 09.00 am Lean CC –Linking European, African and Asia Academic Networks on Climate Change was conducted at Gadjah Mada University. The ceremony was opened by Prof. Dr. Suratman, M.Sc., (Dean of Geography Faculty, UGM). This ceremony was attended by eleven partners. when Mr. Stelios Grafakos, IHS-EUR presented introduction of backgroud Erasmusmundus Project, the electricity suddenly turned off. On other hand the commitee tried to solve the problem and the keynote speaker had continued the presentation. And then we are given time to coffe break. We got information that presentation of all group would be done after coffe break. We were preparing for the presentation and each of group presented their posters one by one. This section was begun by introduction by Rick Heikoop (Senior lecturer of Rotterdam University).

At about 11.00 am, the electricity turned on again. The presentation was be continued by Mark Wiering and continued by Martin vd Velde, Run. They presented about EU-ASIA Educational Cooperation Initiatives. And then the next key note speaker was Stelios Grafakos, IHS-EUR . He presented about the state of the art in climate change education. He explained about climate change impact, information and knowledgment of climate change such as sources of information on climate change, usefulness of knowledge, importance of knowledge of CC to our studies, interest of aspects of CC, demand for climate change spesialist (ecology, wildlife, conservation, foresty job,etc), climate change adaptation.

Edwin van Rest, CEO study Portals and Parter LEANES project presented about Climate change Postgraduate Education in Europe. He explained about the general background of the European Study Choice Platform such as shortcourses, masters, scholarship, PHD, and Bachelors portals. He gaved information about full english programmes listed in environmantal science, especially in climate change.In the other hand, He explained the kinds of european postgraduate programs in Europe that concern about climate change. The last he offered to audience to study in europe who interest about climate change that have big chance. And this conference would be continued tomorow morning. (Sepviana_Dana)

Wednesday, 16^th of November 2011

So, today we had the first day of the Lean CC conference. More details about the morning sessions can be found in Sepviana and Dana’s blog, I agreed with them to divide our blogs between morning and afternoon. However, I would still like to say something about the morning at the Lean CC. The Javanese heat and absence of electricity made it a challenging session. But I guess it is part of the Indonesian experience. We also presented our poster, which represents our findings about the case assignments which we received. The pitch could only last 2 minutes. A short pitch like this means that it’s important that you tell the public the important aspects of your concept and tell it in a ‘to-the-point’ manner. I thought it went quite well and tomorrow we will find out which concept the judges found best. I think it’s a bit unfair to compare, because all the cases are very different.

So that said, I will write something about the afternoon. We didn’t have a program, so we could spend our time as tourist. We went to the most famous street of Yogya; Malioboro street. It’s basically a long colorful street full of shops and stalls and horse carriages, rickshaws and of course motorbikes. I bought some souvenirs and just checked out the scene there. Malioboro is definitely a place you cannot miss when you visit Yogya. In the evening we went to the Balcony, a fancy restaurant where you can have a proper dinner for €10,-. In Indonesia this is expensive, because you can eat dinner here for less than a euro if you really want.

All in all today was very nice, we finally got to see Malioboro street and again I had a positive experience in Indonesia!

Laurence Koetsier