UNAIR NEWS – Two Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR) students successfully bringing home the 2nd Runner Up Team Final Presentation award in Asean Student Experiential Mobility (ASEMO) program. This competition organized by Universiti Utara Malaysia carried the theme: “Empowering ASEAN Youth Leader: AI, Innovation and Sustainability. This event, which was attended by participants from Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, Brunei, and Vietnam, was held in two phases: online from August 2-8, 2026, and offline from August 12-18, 2026 in Malaysia.
Rizqi Alfy Dzikria and Ketut Ghina Sofiya Hamidah said that ASEMO provides many opportunities for students. These opportunities include the opportunity to learn, gain experience, build networks, develop skills, and cross-national leadership. They learned many things, from their experience of studying at UUM, cross-cultural experience in Malaysia such as golf lessons, traditional dance classes, and community service experience at Kampung Kuala Begia Kedah.
“The facilities here are very complete and the atmosphere of the campus is totally different from what I’ve imagined. It feels like I’m truly stepped in a vast and multicultural academic environment,” said Hamidah.
Formulating ASEAN Energy Diversification Compact policy
Dzikria explained that the preparation for the competition were brief but involved in-depth research, poster creation, and practicing for the summit role-play. The challenge involved resolving the conflict in the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and the U.S., with each team member taking on the role of a leader representing a specific country.
“Our team selected Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. We formulated the ASEAN Energy Diversification Compact (AEDC) policy with a short-term approach. This approach includes Reserve, Diversification, and Protection (RDP) Framework and also a long-term approach which includes Transition, Trade, and Transform (3T) Framework. We created an engaging role-play by providing dialogues featuring different perspectives among the countries and then developing the best possible policy framework,” she said.
On the other hand, Hamidah explained that overall, this program is divided into four tracks: Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Sustainability, and AI. Thus, the competition isn’t limited to just one field, but includes participants from different perspectives and backgrounds from across ASEAN.
“In the final stage, we even had to go face-to-face with the three other tracks, which made the competition’s dynamics become very multidimensional. The biggest challenge was on how we truly understood what we were discussing. Additionally, this was my first experience to discuss sustainability issues in the context of a country and region, not just from an environmental perspective, but also from social, economic, and political perspectives. We also learned on how to address each country’s interest without losing sight of the regional perspective,” she added.
Embracing the principle of “Don’t be afraid to start”
Both of them admitted that they don’t have a target to win the competition because they were focusing on exploring their curiosity about the challenges at hand. For them, victory isn’t about claiming the championship title, but also about shifting their perspectives.
“From that experience, we learned that not everything has to start with the ambition to be the best. Sometimes, when we focus on giving our best from what we have, the results can actually come as something we’ve never expected,” Hamidah said.
Author: Putri Andini
Editor: Ragil Kukuh Imanto
