Words by Deka Komanda Yogyantara

Hallo, I am Deka Komanda Yogyantara, XL Future Leaders student Batch 3 from Jakarta region. I just won 1st runner up of Global Impromptu Speech Contest at ASEAN Colloquium 2016 on February 20th 2016 in Bangkok, Thailand. This competition organized by Global Leadership Institute, in partnership with twelve international organizations including United Nations Asia Pacific Headquarters (UN Escap). There was more than 10 countries participated in this event, from Hong Kong to Guinea.

The objective of the competition was to present and recognize the most eloquent and rational public speaker – across the international community through providing wide arrays on global community development initiatives. Topics of the competition are ASEAN Political Security Agenda, ASEAN Climate Change Agenda, ASEAN Socio-cultural Agenda, ASEAN Economic Growth Agenda. Deka, who is also a student in Universitas Indonesia majoring in Political Science, gave an impromptu speech about ASEAN Economic growth related to SDGs and youths roles.

On December 2015, I applied to join this competition, it was my first experience to join an international speech competition. What makes it challenging is the impromptu mechanism, in which we have no idea what topic or question will be given, and we have to give a 3-minute speech on the assigned topic. For weeks I had been preparing and practicing on several topics that might be given. XL Future Leaders workshops and mentoring sessions with Tidar Rachmadi, my facilitator, made my preparation very useful.

Finally, the day of the competition arrived. Participants from various backgrounds and ages were involved in the competition.  When it was my turn to give the speech, I entered the podium, and the question for the speech was given, “ASEAN has three pillars: Political security community, Social and Cultural community, and Economic community. Which one do you believe is the most important pillar related to Sustainable Development Goals  (SDGs) and how can you contribute in it?” I then chose the economic growth. I opened up the speech with McKinsey data which showed that ASEAN is expected to be the 4th largest economy in 2050. Then, as youth, we are expected to answer the today’s challenge in SME, which Indonesian representative government in the KTT Asean-US stated that more than 53% of ASEAN economy is consisted of Small Medium Entreprises (SMEs). SMEs, especially creative industries that are run by youth, can be the next power of Asean to build a stronger economic growth. In my personal opinion, the competition was really challenging with great participants from all over the world, truly this is a great experience for me to meet global leaders and share our ideas.

As the winners of the competition, Deka along with the first place winner, Tamil Vaani karunanithy PhD, a politician and national women secretary of Malaysian Indian Congress Party shall receive the 1st Colloquium series-Bangkok tokens and Priority Invitation to World/ Asia-wide Youth Development Events & Trainings by Global Leadership Institute and International Partners.