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Vision and Background

The cities of today appear to be struggling to cope with the multiple problems they are facing. These include serious infrastructure shortcomings, unrelenting rural-urban migration, uncoordinated planning and an absence of a holistic future oriented vision. Despite the urban chaos to lose hope and despair is to give up on cities that will increasingly be home to bulk of humanity in the coming decades.

Transformation and change are vital and the need of the hour. An urgent transformation towards Eco Cities that are bearable, breathable and livable. Since the youth of today will inhabit the Eco Cities of tomorrow they are critical stakeholders whose energy and ideas for change must be understood, appreciated and developed into practical solutions for civic transformation.

Young Leaders for Eco Cities is a youth oriented initiative from EmergingWISE and IndonesiaWISE that are pioneering sustainability oriented consulting solutions for emerging markets. Under this initiative awareness and competency development workshops, research and projects are developed in collaboration with leading high schools and universities. Deserving projects with practical and time bound actions are socialized to responsible corporations with the objective of raising necessary funding support. The focus is on starting with small meaningful steps and achieving impact as quickly as possible. Projects are developed in collaboration with key stakeholders including government agencies, companies, non government organizations, academic institutions and experts in the field.

Benefits to Youth

Young Leaders for Eco Cities is a participative initiative that aims to channel the positive energy of youth (primarily high school students, university students and young corporate professionals) in practical projects in their towns, cities, neighborhoods, fields of work and social engagements. Through interactive workshops conducted with collaborating academic institutions the concept and vision of Young Leaders for Eco Cities is explained to youth.

Interested youth can volunteer to participate in practical projects under guidance and mentorship of project coordinators from IndonesiaWISE and EmergingWISE. Deserving projects with tangible impacts will also be socialized to leading companies for possible sponsorship. Projects are executed with clear milestones, accountabilities, quality assurance and impact assessments.

Volunteering youth are required to complete a registration form and will be sent the quarterly Young Leaders for Eco Cities newsletter as well as provided ongoing guidance. Participation is based on the Young Leaders for Eco Cities P.A.C.T which involves commitments regarding Personal Responsibility, Action Focus, Constructive Attitude and Transformation Orientation. Expectations under the Young Leaders for Eco Cities P.A.C.T are socialized and reinforced periodically by the project coordinators.

Benefits to Companies

The corporate sector in emerging markets is playing an increasingly important role in corporate social responsibility or CSR activities. Leading companies are aware of their social obligations and keen to balance their business models with prevalent cultural values and societal expectations that necessitate greater engagement with neighboring communities and sustainable growth.

IndonesiaWISE and EmergingWISE have been assisting companies in enhancing their sustainability initiatives including CSR. Young Leaders for Eco Cities engages progressive companies through an annual membership process under which companies are offered information about practical projects identified by youth in towns and cities where their plants or offices are situated. Where interest is shown projects are further refined and integrated into the CSR activities of the company.

While execution of projects remains primarily youth driven there are complementary contributions from employees and other corporate stakeholders like suppliers, distributors and so on. Successfully executed projects are a win-win benefiting the community, properly harnessing the energy of the youth and demonstrating the caring approach of companies. It is hoped companies signing up to support Young Leaders for Eco Cities will do so from a long term commitment perspective and integrate the initiative into their annual calendar of CSR activities.

Periodic updates are provided to companies and projects also feature in the quarterly Young Leaders for Eco Cities newsletter.

Contact

Young Leaders for Eco Cities hopes to facilitate meaningful change and transformation. Given the enormity of the challenges we have adopted a practical one step at a time approach.

If as a responsible corporation, progressive academic institution or interested individual you wish to engage and be part of this exciting movement please contact information@youngleadersforecocities.com

Our Projects

Young Leaders for Eco Cities – Malang Initiative

Spread over an area of approximately 250 sq kms and having an elevated topography, Malang city in East Java enjoys a rich historical, cultural and academic heritage. But there is an additional rare heritage that this city of close to 1 million residents also enjoys – a green heritage. Unlike most of the other Indonesian cities that are suffering from the serious consequences of chaotic and unplanned urbanization, Malang still retains vast green spaces, gardens, parks and a variety of flora and fauna.

However, these are under growing strain as construction, traffic, garbage and careless lifestyle habits threaten to distort the character of the city. Being the second most important city in the region after Surabaya, Malang is finding development to be a double edged sword. The more it prospers the greater the influx of migrants, haphazard construction boom and adverse impacts on its quiet and natural charm. It is vital that a multi stakeholder approach is urgently adopted to protect and strengthen the green heritage of Malang and address weaknesses that can prevent it from becoming a true Eco City.

To assist in this process IndonesiaWISE has pioneered the Young Leaders for Eco City project. Since 2009 the company has been sharing its expertise with students and youth who have demonstrated commitment, energy, sense of ownership and a willingness to share ideas. Socialization seminars have been conducted, mentoring provided to local conservationists and research compiled including perspectives from officials, academics and citizens. It is hoped that with greater support some of these practical suggestions will be developed into implementation actions.

Through this project IndonesiaWISE is committed to providing long term commitment to preserving a Green Malang. If you want to support this initiative please contact information@indonesiawise.com

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"Satisfaction does not come with achievement, but with effort. Full effort is full victory"
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– Sun Tzu
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– Bill Gates
"When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge"
– Albert Einstein
"Just as energy is the basis of life itself, and ideas the source of innovation, so is innovation the vital spark of all human change, improvement and progress"
– Theodore Levitt
"The innovate point is the pivotal moment when talented and motivated people seek the opportunity to act on their ideas and dreams"
– W Arthur Porter
"Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. It's not about money. It's about the people you have, how you're led, and how much you get it."
– Steve Jobs
"The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased, and not impaired in value."
– Theodore Roosevelt
"After all, sustainability means running the global environment - Earth Inc. - like a corporation: with depreciation, amortization and maintenance accounts. In other words, keeping the asset whole, rather than undermining your natural capital"
– Maurice Strong
"Literacy is at the heart of sustainable development"
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"In the long term, the economy and the environment are the same thing. If it's unenvironmental it is uneconomical. That is the rule of nature."
– Mollie Beattie
"The noblest search is the search for excellence"
– Lyndon Johnson
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– Jack Welch
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"All of the top achievers I know are life-long learners... Looking for new skills, insights, and ideas. If they're not learning, they're not growing... not moving toward excellence"
– Denis Waitley
"Strategy 101 is about choices : you can't be all things to all people. Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; its about deliberately choosing to be different."
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"Uncommon thinkers reuse what common thinkers refuse"
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"The innovation challenge will be to craft business strategies that not only deliver unique customer value propositions but also enable a twin impact – of ensuring a positive environmental footprint and creating sustainable livelihoods"
– Y C Deveshwar
"Sustainability has become the foundation of almost all economic thinking nowadays. It is essential not only to economic recovery today, but to ensuring peace and security tomorrow"
– Ban Ki-moon
"The world is not ours, the earth is not ours, it's a treasure we hold in trust for future generations"
– African Proverb
"Organizations can either be efficient, open and honest, or they can be closed, conspiratorial and inefficient"
– Julian Assange
"We didn't want people who thought servicing others was demeaning – we wanted people with high self-esteem. Not people who said in a crisis, "That's not my job," but people who'd say, "How can I help?" People who'd never answer a customer's question by saying, "I don' know," but rather, "I'll find out""
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"The ability to convey emotion convincingly, from the heart, requires that a leader be sincere about the message being delivered; truly believing the emotional message is what segregates the charismatic leader from the self-serving, manipulative one"
– Daniel Goleman
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– Norman Vincent Peale
"If you want to change things, you have to change yourself. And become a 'DJITU' person. D stands for 'disiplin' (discipline) in whatever we do; J for 'jujur' (honesty), because you win trust with that, it is your capital; I is for 'iman' (faith), which must be strong; T is for 'tekun' (focus) and knowing what you want to be, not scattered doing this and that. And U is for 'ulet' (persistence), because you have to work hard for success"
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– Stephen R Covey
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– Colin Powell
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– Graham Greene
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– Robert G Ingersoll
"The best leader is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and the self restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it"
– Theodore Roosevelt
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– Tom Peters
"Many hands, and hearts, and minds generally contribute to anyone's notable achievements"
– Walt Disney
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– Amol Titus
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– Winston Churchill
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– Jim Collins
"Leave the beaten track occasionally and dive into the woods. Every time you do so, you will be certain to find something that you have never seen before"
– Alexander Graham Bell
"What is malleable is always superior to that which is immovable. This is the principle of controlling things by going along with them, of mastery through adaptation"
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– Arthur Conan Doyle
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– Anita Roddick
"If you do not know how to ask the right question, you discover nothing"
– W Edwards Deming
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– Muhammad Yunus
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– Dee Hock
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– Soichiro Honda
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– Bertrand Russell
"The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function"
– F Scott Fitzgerald
"Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing"
– Abraham Lincoln
"The two words 'information' and 'communication' are often used interchangeably, but they signify quite different things. Information is giving out; communication is getting through"
– Sydney J Harris
"When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us"
– Helen Keller
"The human being who lives only for himself finally reaps nothing but unhappiness. Selfishness corrodes. Unselfishness ennobles, satisfies. Don't put off the joy derivable from doing helpful, kindly things for others"
– B.C. Forbes
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– Booker T. Washington
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– Teaching from Zen philosophy
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– W. Brian Arthur
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– Ronald Reagan
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– Chinese Proverb