Two of our researchers, Akhmad Hidayatno and Armand Omar, participated in the 1st Workshop on System Modeling for Policy Development, jointly organized by UKP4 (The Presidential Working Unit for Supervision and Management of Development) and ITB’s School of Business and Management. Mr Akhmad Hidayatno was invited after submitting his paper based on his Ph.D thesis on the sustainable development of biodiesel industry though a multi-level system dynamics model.

This 1st workshop’s theme were “Rehearsing Initiatives” which was explain by Dr. Kuntoro Mangkusubroto as head of the UKP4 to rehearse or exercising policies using the system modeling approach as the next important stage for one of UKP4’s roles to support the decision making of the Presidency. There were 40 paper submitted and 9 were selected to be presented in this workshop, from various institutions in Indonesia.

The workshop also opened by the keynote speech from Prof. Iwan Jaya Azis from Cornell University, who is currently on loan at Asian Development Bank (ADB).  His speech talked about the use of modeling in economics and how we should approach and use them.

The workshop was considered a success, and the subsequent workshops will be conducted in the future to gain more insights from the use of systems modeling in policy development.