Our Focus Areas

June 24, 2021

“Asia’s Challenge 2030” Global Essay Competition: A Compendium of Award-winning Essays

The “Asia’s Challenge 2030” Global Essay Competition challenged students across the world to answer the question: How would you address some of the most important issues in Asia in the coming decade? Participants were asked to tackle a problem in one of three categories: Economy, Trade, and Finance; Environment and Public Health; and Cities and

January 15, 2021

Extraordinary Endeavors in Turbulent Times: Asian Innovation, Inclusion, and Impact during COVID-19

The year 2020 will be remembered for the turbulence caused when a pandemic swept through the world, fundamentally changing people’s way of life, presenting unprecedented challenges to governments worldwide, and forcing businesses to reflect and adapt in order to survive. With this in mind, the Asia Business Council and the Tanoto Center for Asian Family

June 23, 2021

The Neglected Effects of Gender-based Violence towards Jakarta’s Urban Walkability

Ashley Faith Santoso, from the Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia, proposes a technological solution to improve walkability in Jakarta by decreasing gender-based violence. Only 8% of Jakarta is walkable, a situation that the Jakarta Walkable 2022 vision aims to remedy. But in a country where three out of five women have experienced sexual harassment

June 23, 2021

Indigenous Cities: Reframing Modernity and Our Cities

Matthew Flores, from the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines, makes the case for greater indigenous representation in urban design. The essay critiques the homogeneity of urban settings in the Philippines and around the world, the result of ideas of modernity and development that are rooted in colonial norms. If indigenous people are given

June 23, 2021

From a City-scale Beauty Pageant to a Continent-wide Diversified Gallery

Ranita Ma Tsz Yu, of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, uses shopping malls as a study to assess the aesthetic similarity of urban design across Asia. The essays details the remarkable progress that has been made in development thanks to exports and industrialization but cautions against adopting a one-size-fits-all model of urban development. Instead,

January 15, 2021

Yoma Group (Myanmar) – Accelerating Financial Inclusion in a Time of Social Distancing

For Myanmar-based conglomerate Yoma Group, the COVID-19 pandemic was a defining moment in its service to the country. Although its acquisition of mobile financial services operator Wave Money was planned before the pandemic, it was the trying times of 2020 that truly underscored the importance of mobile money in promoting financial inclusion in Myanmar. The

February 28, 2019

Public Health, Climate Change, and Technology: Innovating Toward a Healthier Asia

Public health and climate change are both great challenges for Asia. Together they create a nexus of concern that could become the next big crisis for the region. While rapid economic development has pulled hundreds of millions out of poverty and people’s health and lives are much improved, Asia is dealing with an emerging set

September 15, 2018

Shenzhen, Beijing, and Silicon Valley: Chinese and U.S. Technology Clusters Vie for Supremacy

Driven by a proliferation of emerging, connected, and converging technologies, the economic future for China and the U.S will be one of immense change. Currently, a nation’s ability to innovate is closely linked to perception of national mastery, extending national hegemony into ecosystems of business infrastructure such as those created by large technology companies. Increasingly,

February 25, 2016

Smart Cities and Urban Innovation in Asia

Asia is the most rapidly urbanizing region in the world, and getting urbanization right is important for the region’s long-term growth. This urban growth is largely an Asian story; there are currently 2 billion people living in Asian cities, and a billion additional people are expected to move and join them by 2030. The current

September 27, 2010

Solutions for Asia’s Cities

The future of Asia’s countries lies in its cities. Asian cities are experiencing huge growth in population and wealth; they have the potential to become centers for an increasingly sophisticated workforce and consumer markets with growing purchasing power. Cities are high-productivity centers that generate much of a country’s wealth. But if urban growth is not