Digital BABA

By Mohammad Afzal Hossain Akand

On the beginning of my writing I want say I am grateful to Ajit Kumar Barua, Chairperson, Bangladesh Scholarship Council for bringing me in a global community, Shawrabh Kumar Barua, President ,BSC Alumni Society, to help me as much as a man can & All BSC officials specially Jamal Bhai to be with me in all matters related to BSC.

A Better Asia: Future Leaders Dialogue is a retreat program by the Nippon foundation for its Alumni members. Over the last few decades the NFG had built an outstanding record of private philanthropy which has to date supported and implemented a variety of people exchange and human resources development projects all over the world. The almost 30,000 alumni across the globe therefore represent a vast and diverse pool of talent and potential

Building a Better Asia is a theme of Nippon Foundation. This theme has four key elements as shared prosperity, Common Security, Ecological Balance and Human Security.

The first element is shared prosperity. Economic growth is critical to Asia’s security and well-being. But it must be shared. The region must ensure that no country and sub region is left behind, or turns out to be a loser in globalization. The benefits of growth must be distributed evenly, both within and between nations. The task of eliminating poverty and depravation in all parts of Asia should be urgent.

The second is common security. A regional capacity for peacekeeping and peace building and humanitarian operations must be developed with the consent and active participation of all the countries.

Third element is ecological balance. Environment is truly the common heritage of mankind and the region. Environmental stress respects no national boundaries. Asia faces severe challenges to its environment. Rapid economic growth and rising energy consumption in Asia’s major economic players .So it should be balanced also.

Fourth element is human security. Unlike state or national security, human security focuses on the safety and dignity of the individual. Human security includes freedom from fear as well as freedom from want. Ensuring human security requires protecting human rights through national and international action.

Ensuring these four key elements BABA Retreat program is designed on three main goals. They are as below:

First, it hopes to bring together alumni of Nippon Foundation Group with leadership potential to discuss issues of contemporary relevance and importance.

Second, it seeks to strengthen the networks among these alumni.

Third, it endeavors to encourage Nippon Foundation Group alumni to work together for the benefit of their collective communities.

The third goal integrates the four key elements as “shared prosperity, Common Security, Ecological Balance and Human Security” of BABA. This is the way How The Nippon Foundation Think a Better Asia..

Now I am going to describe the retreat patterns and their probable outcome.

The retreat program was Sixth in number. It started 13th September and ended on the 20th September, 2009.The Nippon Foundation, Asian Dialogue Society and Peking University was the organizers. Global Exchange Centre of Peking University was the Meeting Venue .19 participants among 14 countries of Asia were present as the future leader of Asia. I was the only one participant from Bangladesh. This retreat program seems to be a think tank for the betterism of whole Asia.

Format of the retreat was split into four main categories. They were lectures, leadership activities, group discussions and organic study tours. The lectures set the tone for the retreat, by bringing up important contemporary issues and sharing the vast and interesting of the distinguished resource persons. There were various management-style leadership activities to impart a philosophy of leadership to the retreat participants. In what was termed an “open session,” retreat participants were made to come up with topics and trends to be discussed. Discussions were led by participants with the help of the resource persons and facilitators. Each night the resource persons were engaged in a long open conversation, where participants were encouraged to ask them about their leadership and life experiences. Study tours to get a sense of the hyper-local environment are arranged for the participants.

On The retreat, there was an emphasis on digital communication, in the form of audio, internet and video. Social media and various other web-based technologies were harnessed to get a discussion going before the retreat, and to ensure that it continues long into the future.

We had eleven Interactive sessions, several discussions, leadership planning, teamwork and Leadership session, and Group presentation how to build a better Asia.

There was a very good session by Mr. Shuichi Ohno, Executive Director, The Nippon Foundation on The Nippon Foundation and Its Work.

Mr. M. Rajaretnam, Program Director, Building A Better Asia: young Leaders Retreat, have several speeches which were very important for us to grow and mindset in Building A Better Asia He was the core person of this program

Mr. T Ogata, President, Nippon Foundation was another core person on that retreat program.

The session of Value Innovation by Johnson Paul, Deputy Director, National Library Board, Singapore was very interesting because we learned the mechanism how to make an idea into a project.

The session of Dr. William Sabandar on Cyclone Nargis Disaster Management gave us a true learning about Disaster Management which will help all the participants of Asia because we have frequent flood, cyclone, tsunami and earthquake.

The Session s of Anupam Saraph on Habits of Effective Leaders made us frequent with the habits of world leaders as Mahatma Gandhi, George Washington, Nelson Mandela,Mau se Tong, Sheikh Mujib and other global leaders.

The session of Professor Goodman on Education & Leadership was also very good because he discovered the linkage of education & leadership on the session.

Each of the sessions we learned how a leader behaves, how they think, how they work. We also knew about the influencing power of leaders, Using of thinking hats to influence others.

Most of the sessions and conversations we talked about the common things that we can share and the common goal we can target to achieve. Every time we were busy for the betterment of Asian countries. We planned how to work, how to integrate a plan and how to make the Betterism for Asian countries.

We tried our best for making a common strategy for the equal development in common goods of Asian Countries and sharing the knowledge base for the countries.

Finally we made a common projection of the participants on Building a Better Asia which is the strategy made by us for Building A Better Asia. Each of the participants gave their own target and strategy to achieve the goals and finally we integrated the goals by making an integrated target oriented strategy in a common platform which will lead us to our dream Building a better Asia through Building the common Good in Asia.

I want to thank The Nippon Foundation for doing better things for Asian people, Mr Rajaretnam for being a think tank for a Better Asia, Miss Vicky Honda For International Networking to make the dream Successful, Mary Kanniga for helping us in all the possible ways, Akira and Rina for being the Great Two Facilitators, My Friends i.e. all participants of the retreat programs in the retreat program for sharing their knowledge and feelings, All of the resource Persons for directing us in a creative way , Fantastic Four ,Yang Ying and Jessica from Peking University for guide us in all matters.

Finally I want to give my Salute to Ajit Kumar Barua, Chairperson, Bangladesh Scholarship Council & the Nippon Foundation for supporting the meritorious students of Bangladesh through Bangladesh Scholarship Council. And I promise that I will try my best to work with BSC and TNF. All other alumni of BSC and TNF should try their best to work with the organization for Building a Better Asia, The Dream of all Asian People

Let’s work…Lets think Out of the Box. For the Betterism of Asia.

Mohammad Afzal Hossain Akand

Assistant Director, Bangladesh Bank, Head Office, Dhaka

Email:roney0009(at)gmail.com