In the current world order, Southeast Asia stands at a critical crossroads. Home to 700 million people and a $4 trillion economy, the region has managed to sustain peace despite its immense diversity. By all measures, it should already be central to global consciousness, yet it remains at the margins.

Through multidisciplinary conversations with leading thinkers and practitioners, we will examine the forces shaping Southeast Asia’s trajectory: education, leadership, economic strategy, sustainability, and its place in the current geopolitical order.

Together, we will reflect on the past, trace the realities of the present, and chart the forward vector. Exploring the collaborations Southeast Asia must forge with neighboring regions and the wider world to unlock its full potential, bringing this region from periphery to core of global consciousness.

Join us for this afternoon book talk event with Gita Wirjawan.

This event is co-sponsored by the Precourt Institute for Energy.

Agenda

12:30 p.m. - Check in opens, lunch served on first come, first served basis

1:00 p.m. - Welcome remarks

1:05 p.m. - Discussion with Gita Wirjawan and David Cohen

2:10 p.m. - Open Q&A with audience

2:25 p.m. - Closing remarks

Speaker

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Gita Wirjawan is a visiting scholar at Stanford's Precourt Institute for Energy and formerly a visiting scholar at Shorenstein APARC (2022-24). Wirjawan is the chairman and founder of Ancora Group and Ancora Foundation, as well as the host of the podcast "Endgame." While at APARC, he researched the directionality of nation-building in Southeast Asia and sustainability and sustainable development in the U.S. and Southeast Asia.

Moderator

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David Cohen is the co-director of The Southeast Asia Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.  He is also a leading expert in the fields of human rights, international law and transitional justice, as well as one of the world's leading social and legal historians of ancient Greece. Cohen taught at UC Berkeley from 1979-2012 as the Ancker Distinguished Professor for the Humanities, and served as the founding Director of the Berkeley War Crimes Studies Center, which moved to Stanford in 2013 and became the Center for Human Rights and International Justice. He now serves as the Center's faculty co-director. Cohen holds the WSD-HANDA Professorship in Human Rights and International Justice and is appointed in the Classics department at Stanford. He is also appointed as Professor of Integrated Socio-Environmental Systems in the Department of Environmental Behavior Sciences at Stanford's Doerr School of Sustainability.