 So, this session is, what if, what if the youth of ASEAN ran the region? How would they do things differently or not from the state of affairs in ASEAN today? I'd like to, I'm Zora Bulkareem, I'm the Asia Editor of Time. We've got a terrific, terrific group here. Very diverse, very inclusive group. We've got, to my right, William Tanuijaya, who is co-founder of Tokopedia eight years ago, which is an online site which gives businesses and individuals the chance to sell and market their wares. So, C2C, but it's also B2B, and it's doing very well. Next to William is Cassandra Chu from Singapore, and she's an advocate for the blind. And we also have, with Cassandra, we have Esme, her guide dog, and we welcome Esme as well. Gina Rossero, who's a Filipino-American supermodel and a public speaker and an advocate, a transgender advocate, Somsak Bunkam, but he tells all of us to call him Pi. And he's the founder of Localalike, which is a community-based tourism platform. I think there is an element of fresh experiences in terms of travel, but also an ecological aspect to Localalike as well. And it's great to see Miguel Ciocco again, who is a writer, a journalist, a professor who's teaching right now in Abu Dhabi, and a multiple award winner for his writing. So, what if the youth of ASEAN ran the region? It is an appropriate subject. The average population under 25 in ASEAN is about 45 percent. Singapore is the only sort of outlier, because Singapore has got an aging population and a low birth rate. In most of ASEAN, the educational foundation is good and improving. So I think the governments, the societies, have the sense that our youth should be educated, should go out in the world, and be leaders. And this is not something new. Mark Twain talked about the hope of youth. He said, there is no sadder sight than a young pessimist, except for an old optimist. Bishop Carlos Bello, who was the 1966 co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, said, young people carried the responsibility to create a world in which peace, harmony, and fraternity reign. Kofi Annan, who used to be UN Secretary-General, said, young people should be in the forefront of global change and innovation. They can be agents for development and peace. I am so glad I'm not young, because I couldn't handle the pressure. Okay, so the world is yours. So what I'm going to do first is do a whip around, starting anti-clockwise with William on my right. What is it about young people that gives them this advantage to be future leaders? What is their competitive advantage? What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? For the strength, I really like the words of hope, right? Hope brings conviction, hope brings this sense of idealism, this sense of purpose. And in some sense, it's just some sense of naive. Like today I can be where I am today, because eight years ago, even 10 years ago, a younger version of me today, a younger William, have this very strong conviction, have this very strong rebel, have this very strong hope, and he's very naive. At first, we are fail of anything. We are fail when we want to start a business, we fail to raise money. The first time that I'm trying to convince people to join my company, because when you're building a technology company, it's all about people. I stand two days in a job export in my university. No one apply. So we fail on everything. We fail on convincing our first business partner and so on and so on. The young William with his naive, he can take that failure and can be rebel and figure out the way around. One of the worst advice that I took eight years ago is some potential investors say to me, William, you can only have your youth once in your lifetime. So don't waste your time. Find something more realistic to do. Don't daydreaming. All your dreams about building Silicon Valley in Indonesia is not possible. Indonesia is not Silicon Valley. How these people that are able to build a successful technology company in Silicon Valley, they are born special and you are not. The young William take that as an insult, take that as a mission, as a purpose. I will change this. So I think that youth have this naive. It's very, very important and become their very strength. They're taking that as an opportunity to challenge the status quo. They take it as a mission to against all the odds. And this is a young characterism. But their biggest strength can also be their biggest weakness. So we see today in social media, we are start living in our own bubble. The youth with the instant gratification lifestyle. You post anything on the social media, you get instant recognition by that time. So you start to live in your bubble. You surround yourself by it. You only share the information that you like. You only like the information that you like, of course. And then you start to live on your own bubble. If we keep maintaining that direction, we are naive on our own world, then I'm afraid that the world will be divided into two very extreme polar in the future. So I hope that the youth can understand their strength and their weakness. In the future, they can start listening again. So they are not only post their opinion, but they can also read and listen what is the opposite of the table, what is their opinion and find a middle ground of that. I want to come back to the social media aspect a little later. I think we may have an opportunity to do that about the challenges of that. But Cassandra? I definitely agree with what William said about all of those things and the instant gratification. Definitely, the youth today has a lot of motivation, a lot of drive, and all of these are great, great qualities with a lot of the young people I work with in my work as a counsellor. I mean, I'm not a politician, I'm not an economist. If you ask me what great qualities they have as leaders, I think what I can see is that determination, that drive, that desire to want to achieve something for themself, that's something that can spear young people on to help them achieve the next milestone, the next big thing in their lives, which I think would also benefit all of us on the side as well. That's another thing I want to come back to. But after we've done the round, Gina, do you think that the values of youth, and of course it's hard to generalize it across 10 countries, but do you think the values of youth are trending more towards openness, inclusiveness? There was just a survey just out about the United States, and the United States is a very conservative government right now, but the survey showed that the government is actually out of touch with a lot of the social values of young people which are trending towards a more liberal side. What is your take? I think I would like to start by saying J. Walter Thompson, which is a global forecasting company, did a big survey study in 2015 that basically suggested that Generation Z, 81% of Generation Z identifies are more gender fluid. Like for the first time, there's a study that really determines that the young generation, because culture being so fluid, access to so many different, whether the music or the globalization aspect of different cultures and how they identify, it's affecting that. So for the longest time, we've only had this idea of gender as a binary, but the youth are leading those components, whether from their product that they purchase or the brands that they support. It is now easy to see even as a fashion model myself to see so many advertising campaigns that really highlights and honor LGBT individuals being in the forefront of the brands. So I think it makes such a difference, especially now more than ever, we have accessed all these information. People would tend to ask me sometimes, Gina, do you wanna be identified as a model who happened to be trans or a trans model? So there's obviously a big difference, but one thing I could say that for the longest time when I was modeling for 10 years and not being out as a trans person, I didn't have access to the visibility and sort of like a media representation for trans people in media that I didn't see. So now if I post something on a new advertising campaign that I'm doing or the projects that I'm doing and my followers in South Africa anywhere in the world, they see that sense of hope in a sense that like a trans person could actually be successful and be passionate, could be an entrepreneur. So I would like to say that I tend to, you know, not apologize for all of those, I guess the pride that I have with my identity because when I was starting out, I didn't see that reflection in the media. So I do my part in making sure that I tell those stories. I wanna ask a follow-up question right away because we may not have a chance to get back to it again. Do you find that this trend is more pronounced or people in the West are much more open about it than let's say in Asia because you've lived in both arenas? Certainly, I think, you know, I see in the nations over here in Southeast Asia, there's certainly a big and long culture of gender fluidity. You know, I came from the culture in the Philippines where at 15 years old, I started joining transgender pageants. That is the most mainstream part of our culture in the Philippines and that exists in many places in Thailand, some places in Indonesia. So I think because of that long history, it's a part of that long history allowing people to see that certain social visibility for LGBT people that are part of mainstream society. But most importantly, visibility is one part of the component of becoming who you are. Certainly, there's a lot of work that needs to be done when it comes to political representations. And I like to always say because from where I grew up in the Philippines, LGBT, special trans people are culturally visible but not politically recognized. And my personal experience moving to the United States, it was almost, I mean, this is in 2001. It's important to have the context, right? I moved to San Francisco. There was a degree of political recognition, meaning I had some rights where I could change my name in gender marker. There's anti-discrimination bill. There are access when it comes to medically supported transition related surgeries for people in California, but there's no degree of visibility. So I think growing up in the Philippines, it allowed me that sort of perspective, that the sense of visibility for LGBT people has to be backed up by the political recognition because those two things, it's a very symbiotic relationship. Thank you for that. Pai, what do you think? What do you think is the best asset or the strongest asset that youth have? If I have to say it, I mean like, I probably form another different background that I grew up in a very small village, rural villages in Thailand, where I mean, lack of like economic opportunities and even educational opportunities. I mean, we as a whole villages, not just like the young generation, but my parents and my grandparents, we have to work hard, I mean, because of like infrastructure have not been implemented. And I mean, I believe that if, if like infrastructure has been implemented, we have our own thoughts. And I mean, because of that, that's why it makes us like, who live in the rural area, totally different from who live in Bangkok because like a better infrastructure there. So from my point of view that, who work very hard, I mean, in order to get money to spend on our life, I mean, what make, I come so far to this point is that because of like a, we are looking for opportunity ourselves. And when it comes to works, I mean, we know how to work more playful and less stuffy in terms of youth, I mean, in young generations, I would say. Well, you know, William was talking early about how he was naive and that actually proved to be a strength because he refused to take no and refused to take one called wiser advice. And you see where he is now. What took you out? What drove you motivated you to get to go from the village to now? Essentially, you're on a global stage. Was it something within you yourself or your parents or some mentors? What? I mean, it's a combination of both my parents and myself. I worked in a house and it was 10 years old to get out of poverty. And I think when we're saying about poverty, I mean, and the way that local people like us being used as just, I mean, like trying for other people like who live in the cities or those who have like a better infrastructure, they're trying to help us. I mean, but I want to just want to say that if I could say is that we own, we have our own thoughts of how we see ourselves I mean, of improving ourselves. We don't want to be used as just a tool. Like, okay, people want to come to the local village and just want to help, but they don't engage in our thought. I mean, in that, I mean, they just like use us as a public cities or their own, I mean, advantage, but they don't care about our thoughts and opinions. And I really want to do that. And that is a big force for me to change my life and to work a little hard and to get to the point. Well, the common thread I'm seeing up till now is that all of you are fighters and you're a fighter too. You fight through words. Yeah, I do, I try. And maybe more now. What drives you and what do you think youth should be driven by? If they want to take up a leadership role. Well, I'm kind of at the tail end of youth and I'm 40 now, but I'm very privileged that I'm able to work with people who are at the very beginning of adulthood, my students. So I get to see the whole spectrum from a certain perspective. And the students that I've spoken with feel that they've got more skin in the game. They certainly feel disempowered. They look at the older generation who is in charge as a generation that isn't giving them much chance to participate. And this is kind of what does drive me. For us to be able to speak out, to be able to participate, to be heard. I do believe that freedom of speech is something that is being eroded more and more, especially today. And we've shifted towards this idea of responsible speech. But who gets to dictate what is responsible and what is not, but the powers that be. The ones in charge, the older ones who perhaps don't wanna listen to what the youth are saying. In my experience, working with these students, they say, well, you know, they were born into an interconnected, tolerant, globalized world. And looking at the, I had one student tell me, looking at the leaders trying to figure out how that works is like looking at your grandmother, trying to figure out how a computer works, completely not understanding it. And so not using it and just brushing it aside and saying, I'm just too old for that, for me to be able to work with that. And a lot of the values, a lot of the concerns, a lot of the ideas that the youth really adhere to are not being taken up by the older generation. And if we were, one of the things that absolutely drives me, and if we're really to be very honest about it, is most of us here will agree that democracy is an important thing. It is our best path towards equality. It is our best avenue to be able to get rid of abusive leaders without a revolution. But if we look at the democracies in the ASEAN and around the world as well, there are systems where if you are a young person with some experience and you've got a good idea and you've got a good following, you could become the leader of your country. But if we look at the democracies that we do have everywhere, that's impossible. There's too much power, there's too much corruption, there are too many dynasties. In the Philippines, for example, 80% of our legislature is ruled by dynasties. 90% of all of our governorships are ruled by dynasties. So to the youth who aren't part of those dynasties, access to power, access to participation is impossible. Well, Miguel has just put the catamount of the pigeons with the D word, democracy, which ties into something that was mentioned earlier about the resilience, we've talked about the audacity of youth, but the resilience of youth. I'm based in Hong Kong. So in Hong Kong, young people, particularly the university students, are known or used to be known as the strawberry generation. Why strawberries? Because strawberries are easily bruised. So the strawberry generation is that Hong Kong people were regarded as Hong Kong young people, were regarded as real, they're softies. And that's, I know Hong Kong very well, and that's the impression I had too. This is not Berkeley, this is not Istanbul or Cairo, okay? But 2014 changed all that with the Occupy protests in Hong Kong and it was young people going out there and me and my team were recovering it. And I was struck by the evolution that this one, that they were galvanized and it was a surprise to me, but it was also a surprise to the authorities in Hong Kong and it was a huge surprise to the authorities in Beijing. Suddenly they had a revolutionary situation in Hong Kong which is a very materialistic society. So if it can happen in Hong Kong, I guess it can happen in a lot of places. But also you have this sense of youth that are very, very caught up in social media. I think this was mentioned earlier. They're always looking at their phone or looking at their laptops. Are they really, are they actually within a bubble? That means it works both ways. We have youth who are crossing borders, Gina was saying, much more open, much more global, but at the same time, they're also much more just looking at what is in front of their eyes. Is there a balance here or is there a conflict here? Is there a case of one side wins out, one side does not, that we cannot draw a broad conclusion about the usefulness and the resilience of youth. This morning someone said to me, you're gonna be in this youth session, come on. Millennials give me a break. They're gonna take over the world? If they do, forget it. So anyone, anyone? I have a little perspective when it comes to taking selfies in this component. People would always say, oh, this whole selfie generation and what had happened. And I wanna go, critically engage a little bit more when it comes to LGBT people. For the longest time, LGBT people are persecuted. They never see themselves perfectly in the media. But for us in my community and the people that I speak about, the people that I, that are my people, my community, right? For us, the validation, I'm seeing yourself taken selfie, feeling good about it is a huge thing. That's a huge thing to just that self-validation in a lot of the campaigns that happens in LGBT organizations when it comes to photo, social sharing, when it comes to humanizing the aspect. Because a lot of times that happens when a lot of people or even countries here, specifically in a CN region, where a lot of people don't know who are these LGBT people, who are trans people. But the moment you see more and more in their faces, who they are representing themselves when they're taking selfies or there's a campaign humanizing themselves, that makes such a difference that our community would not have to wait for a government to change policy or wait for an opportunity to be on television to speak who we are. Those certain things makes a difference. I understand maybe some people like, this is too much, taking the selfie generation. But for us in our community, it makes such a difference to have that. I see. Thank you. I think I was in danger of falling off. In a sense, all of us on the stage, but particularly the five of you, are minorities in some way. When you look at it, William being an internet entrepreneur in Tunisia, which is not as common as in some of the places, Cassandra and the work that she advocates, Gina, you've talked about it. Pi, the path, the vocation that you've taken, Miguel, yeah, simply your thoughts are put in a minority. Does that, do you think that that if youth are in that sort of a situation, the tendency is to fight harder or is also, is there a tendency to just say, I can't beat the system. I can't beat the system of entrenched power, whether the power is political, social, or cultural or economic. I can't beat the elderly. We all know that in Asia is generally culturally conservative. You can be economically very open but culturally very conservative. Youth should be seen but not necessarily heard. The elders know best. So do you think, I think it comes down to this, are youth in a minority and does that sense of identification help or hurt anyone? For me, I think it's definitely help. It's give you a mentality of underdog. And as an underdog, you don't find an excuse. You find your courage. You figure out reasons to have a perseverance and you never, never lose hope. As underdog, you train harder. You fight harder. It's all about the talents to start the school against all the odds. And yeah, it's a beauty of being underdog. I think it's a plus. Cassandra? I think it's a little bit of both because on one hand, the underdog phenomena drives us to be more motivated to do more, achieve more but yet there are those that feel beaten by what's happening out there, the control that's out there. The bigger question, I think that there's no question that youth has a lot to offer in terms of leadership, in terms of bringing the next generation forward. But the bigger question is, how can we allow the youth to have a bigger say in leadership while still conserving, preserving, having safeguards in place that the rule of law still survives. Things don't get too badly out of hand in that sense. Well, I mean, the truth is, I agree with that. The youth definitely need to be given more opportunities to participate. You mentioned the elders know best. Do they really? I mean, look at the world that the elders have made right now. Would you say that this is a good world that they've created? No, I would say not. The youth are made to be part of a minority or made to feel like they are a minority, even though especially in this region, they are the majority. Yes. And so what's happening, at least to my perspective, is that we have these older, old folk, let's call them, who want to exclude, who want to make this majority a minority, and they're using the politics of fear, for example, or anything that they can do to make sure that this teeming mass of idealistic, hungry, hopeful, young people are kept in weakness and in fear. And if we were to look at ancient wisdom of the immortal youth icon Yoda, fear is the path to the dark side, right? Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hatred. Hatred leads to suffering. I mean, all of you think that there is a disconnect between the youth of ASEAN trending toward a progressive direction. And speaking to Miguel's point, a lot of countries in ASEAN, in terms of the establishment, trending regressively. We can give any number of examples. You already talked about the dynasties and the clans. And of course, we know what is happening with the drug war in the Philippines. In Thailand, we are back to military rule in Thailand. After some years of turbulent, but still sort of flirtations with a democratic system within your community, you've seen probably both sides. Singapore, Singapore is a great success story, maybe the biggest success story in ASEAN, although it is an easier place to manage than a lot of the other countries. We're lucky and being small. Pardon? We're lucky and being small. We're lucky and being small, but there's also that tension all the time between the status quo and moving forward. That's right. And Indonesia, you, I'm sorry? I was saying, I think that's one of the ingredients that make us as a country push forward and want to strive more. And that's something perhaps that youth, it came with our youth as a country, not just as a people. So perhaps that's one of the qualities that we're looking at as well. Actually, again, so we don't miss getting to this. When I was talking about Hong Kong strawberry generation, does Singapore have an equivalent? Because Singapore is even more comfortable than Hong Kong. Yes, I would say definitely, yes. As we move forward, definitely that strawberry generation is there. Many of the young people I see today have a lot of aspirations. They want everything ready on the table. They definitely want, we all want better lives. We all buy into lots of different ideas, such as having a better, cleaner, more sustainable world, having equality, no discrimination, and stuff like that. But a lot of people wanting all of this, but we're not really getting there yet. And I think the platform for achieving all of this still needs to happen. As a counselor, I work with my clients when they are unhappy, when they're depressed, looking at tools, giving them tools to be able to achieve, succeed, what they feel that it's going to help them achieve that sense of balance and well-being in their life. For the youth of this generation, what are those tools going to be? Is the internet enough? What more needs to be done? But again, just to follow up, are young Singaporeans hungry enough? I would say some are. Some are not, similarly as how it would be in many other parts of ASEAN as well. And you know, Indonesia has got a huge, the demographics. And simply by being correct and if I'm wrong, it's the biggest population in ASEAN, right? Yeah, 40%. Yeah, so you have more young people than just by dint of that. Are they hungry enough? Are they motivated enough? So I have an experience to, now an organization employ 1,300 people. And I'm considered the older folks in the organization. So on Netflix, they are 23 years old. This is most likely the first jobs for majority of them. So I have an experience early this, when especially when we are a small startup, we cannot even hire someone with experience. And the youth come in association with inexperience, right? And when they join the company, they don't have a clue how to actually do their jobs. And it comes to me and asks me that how I can do this task. And I think it's all about the mindset. And when I see the task, I myself also don't have experience to do that. When you don't know what you don't know, you cannot guide other people to do that stuff. So what I try to do is actually implement that mindset to them with a culture show on that. That actually is a good quote from Henry Ford. He's saying that whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you are both right. So I'm actually using that quote to all the youth that seek for advice on how they solve a problem. So it's a come from the mindset. If you think you can't, you surrender at that point of time. It's proof that you are right. You will fail. But if you think that you can, but you still don't know how, and you figure out using 24 hours, seven days, your time, I have time, you have time, and you use your time to figure out the way, you'll figure out that way. And I think the youth just need more trust and opportunity. When you give that trust and opportunity to them with a ecosystem that you can make a mistake, but you need to learn from that mistake, with the culture on that, then a lot of magical things actually happens. Just wanna bring up one topic before we turn it open to the audience here and outside. So how is it possible for youth to encourage or even institute change where you persuade governments, society, the wider society, even your own families to get with the program, to get with the program of youth? How is that possible? Or is it bottom up? Or does it have to be top down? That you have to get leadership, whether it's political or business leadership that recognizes that this is the way forward, especially when you have such a big part of your population, your society, so young. I would like to say something to what William was saying about opportunity and hunger. I mean, there's definitely something to be said for a CN as a regional body that when it comes to LGBTI rights, we are so far from it. We haven't even addressed any of this bigger issue. So to think about the hunger and to have an opportunity, there's an absolute disconnect because LGBT people can't fully participate if we don't have our rights. Same-sex relationships are criminalized in three countries like Brunei, Singapore, Myanmar, my transgender brothers and sisters are criminalized still right now in Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. How could we even fully participate if we don't have the rights that leads to absolute violence and death? So as sad as it may sound, this is the reality that we live, that yes, we could talk about the progressive nature of having youth being the majority here in CN as a regional body, but we need to address these bigger topics because we can't even fully participate. For example, if you don't have a gender recognition law that allows trans people to change their name and gender marker on their legal documents and somebody is applying for a job with a disconnect in your identification, how could you even dignify yourself? The first question that the HR person would say is about why is this disconnect? Even within that, there's a disconnect. So how could you even get to the point where you're gonna be talking about your capability? So it's important we're talking about the progressive nature of this, but my community can't even participate, can't even feel humanized, dignified in our world. So you're talking about having even got to that first stage of basic rights. Miguel, I get a sense that you wanna say something. No, I think Gina's absolutely right. And I think that speaks to not just that community but to all of the youth community representation. You know, we don't have representation and this is going back to my point about democracy is that that's the essence of what the system is about, representation for our rights and for all of us, for our concerns to be heard and to participate. And Gina's absolutely right. Yeah, I think, and then when you combine it, I think, with what is the business case? There was this big study that USAID and UCLA Williams Institute did a study on 39 countries, 29 emerging markets. The relationship within LGBT inclusion and what it means for economic output of countries. And what they found out is that if countries have affirming for their LGBT rights, there's actually an actual economic imperative around that. Like there's a bigger GDP growth per capita. Like this is huge to think about like on those terms that it's a good economic business model, business case to have LGBT rights for countries. This is a big study that they did that was released in 2014. That's an interesting pie because the work that you're doing and the company that you have combines both a sort of a socioeconomic, moral, ethical imperatives, but also your business as well. So is that one way to be able to be able to sort of sell progressive ideas, progressive values, progressive businesses that also give young people a chance? Definitely, yes. The reason that I focus on sustainability and sustainable development in Thailand because we see a lot of problems, where income is not distributed equally in Thailand. And I think one of the big industry that we should focus on in Thailand is tourism industry for sure. And I think when you're saying about opportunities, I think tourism is one of the opportunities that rural villages or people who live in far away from Bangkok can tap on. And what would be the way that they can tap on? I mean, if we focus on just the economic aspect of it, like just the income science of it, it's gonna be sustainable in the wrong way. So what we are trying to focus on and what I'm trying to represent the whole villages, I mean, we work with 70 villages across Thailand, is that please put a emphasize or priority on ability, I mean, capabilities of us, I mean, of people who live there. The only thing that we need is just knowledge and the people who come in a perspective that they don't know better than us, they know equally the same with us. We probably know better because we live in that area. I think from the past six years that I've been working on this, trying to balance, I mean, we know that mass tourism in Thailand is here, but sustainable tourism is still here. I'm not saying that mass tourism has to be go away in Thailand because it's some, I mean, it comes with a lot of opportunity for us as well, but how to make sustainable tourism come equally, I think. And that way, seeing tourism as one of the, the opportunity for youth for sure, because like many, many of youth or young generation in Thailand, even in the rural village, they got education somewhere, but they tend not to come back home. And I think tourism is one of the very sexy work kind of thing that can attract them to come back and work at home and so that they can spend time with their parents. It seems a natural development for Thailand, for young Thais, since tourism is such a big part of your economy. Questions? Any questions from the floor? Anyone? Yes. Jenon, please. Hi. Thank you. Firstly, it feels quite old, like yourself, listening to millennials and trying to figure out how to do an evening... Welcome to the club. But one question I have, and William will test this a little bit, is in the region, if you look at, do we have younger people, and you talked about Miguel, not enough representation, I don't see enough people stepping up either. Unfortunately, in Indonesia, where I come from, and William comes from, we've had a bit of a setback recently with one of the most honest people that we elected as a governor, being accused of blasphemy, ending up in jail. And relatively young. Very young. And if I look around the region, whether it's Singapore with its own traditions of democracy, or the Philippines, or Thailand with its own challenges, I'm not seeing enough younger people still stepping up. It's one thing to say, yes, we're not represented, but are you seeing people stepping up? I don't see enough in Indonesia either, so I don't know if that's something that is not being... It's a push, or is it a pull? I can't understand, but would like the talks of the younger kids here. Do people agree here? Young people are not setting up? I do. Stepping up, and why? Because there's a wall in front of them. The politics is dirty, and it's corrupting, and we've seen throughout history that those who go into it have to play the game to survive, and in that way become corrupted. I grew up with a political family, and I chose not to enter it, even though I wanted to participate, because I knew that that wasn't the way that I could. I was afraid of it, and talking to a lot of my students, they feel that politics have become about blame, and you're always blaming the previous administration, or blaming the past, and therefore you don't want to step up, because then you will be blamed, and you are primed to fail because the system is so against you. And so that's why, especially here at the World Economic Forum, a lot of the young people that I've seen and connected with, they're doing things outside of government, because obviously the care is there, but the system is stacked against them. Cassandra, Singapore, we were talking about a couple of points that you made, because correct me if I'm wrong, but in Singapore, the government does go out of its way to groom young people, and to bring them into the system, groom them for leadership, so long as they're not aim or see. So do you think is Singapore more enlightened, this old top to bottom thing? Renewal of leadership is definitely something that's very, very important, as one day, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years from now, the youth are going to take over this world, and it will be the other. But what's more important other than creating a space for the youth to have leadership positions is also the youth themselves, or ourselves in this case, rather, taking up the ownership and accountability for themselves, for their generation, for their minority, whatever it may be, to have a voice to champion what they believe in, and not just on their butts and complain, and get off their laurels and do something about it. See, and I want to add on the Miguel point, I think that this is a process, on the unjust operation, I have a conversation with Brian, and she said a very good quote, on the unjust operation, humanity and impact leader will born, and we see this through the history. In recent case in Indonesia, for example, there will be an example, they will create a movement, hopefully, if the youth step up, then it will create a movement that clean politician is aspiration, but we need a moral model about that, and it takes time. It cannot be just instant, if the youth expect instant gratification, then we'll live in the bubble. But if the youth start to, instead of avoid the game, but enter the game and fix the game from within, fix the system from within, then I believe that we have hope. Actually, I always encourage a youth to dream with their eyes open, because to only have a dream is very easy. And dream with their eyes open, my way of dream with their eyes open is what you dream, what you think, what you talk or what you speak, and what you do is always the same, consistent. You can dream about one thing, but then you need to think a plan how to really realize that dream, and you need to be able to speak or talk about it, to inspire people, to move people, to join that movement, and the most important, can you really do it, execute it? Well, that's a hard thing. I mean, but if you look at all the protests in the Philippines, for example, you look at the, who led the protests in the umbrella revolution, the Occupy Movement, Tiananmen Square, for example, the protests there, they were all the youth, right? So they care, they obviously do, but they just don't know how to get to the next level, how to participate, and of course, it's so difficult, they've got to get jobs afterwards, they want to have children, their parents have imposed certain duties upon them, that they have to fulfill, they want to fall in love, they want to have fun, they want to travel. I mean, there's so many things that occupy them, that it's hard for them to go from protesting, especially when they're not heard, to participating. It's interesting, you mentioned it, because the umbrella revolution, sort of the de facto leader of it now is Joshua Wong, who started being an activist at the age of 15, which was on a huge education issue, which brought out 90,000 people in Hong Kong. Now he's the voice, he's now 20, and he's already a veteran, but what people say about Joshua Wong in Hong Kong, nobody's gonna give him a job. Exactly. Well, all of you are activists in some form or other, and which means that all of you are political in some form or other, even beyond the conventional meaning of being political or being in politics, but would any of you, or all of you, actually enter formal politics in your arenas? I'm too much of an artist, I'm probably not. But one thing I would say when it comes to activism, or even the definition of activism, especially with the internet and the many revolutions that we have seen, it's not just all about going to the streets and protesting in the seats rallying, that's one thing, and that's a big component of it. But I think certainly for LGBT people, for my community, people would always ask me, especially the young generations that I talk to, I wanna be an activist just like you, I wouldn't do all that stuff. And I always tell them, you know what, in this reality that we're dealing with when it comes, especially in this region, for LGBT youth specifically, just to be a successful person, whatever that is that you're doing is your biggest advocacy that you could give to the world, that you could show to the world that despite all of these challenges, despite governments and oppressive systems that doesn't want me to be successful, but I made it, not saying specifically me, but as a person, that as a proclamation, that is the biggest advocacy, is that personal success, living your life, being passionate, whether it's through business, whether it's through the arts. Those are some of the things that I talk to, a lot of the LGBT youth that I speak about is that be, choose that path of passion, of something that you're passionate about and be the most successful person as you could be. So leadership by example, just by what you do as role models. Question from the audience? Question from the audience? No? Yes, please? Thank you. Hello, thank you for your wonderful discussion and sharing. My name is Shruthi, I'm from Auckland, New Zealand and part of the global shapers community here, so the 20 to 30 year old youthful cohort. We've got a number of kind of young people in the audience and I was curious to hear what kind of insight or advice might you have, given all the challenges, all the systemic barriers that we've discussed, what would be your advice to young people in this room to really step up and lead to create a better ASEAN in the future? Good, can I, oh go ahead. Sure, and you're not from ASEAN? I'm highly engaged in ASEAN, it's very engaging on the field, but not directly. Thank you for your concern, seriously, I say that seriously. I just finished teaching a semester at the university and I was trying to get my students to, it's a round table discussion in that course that we have, novels that change the world and everybody would always timidly raise their hand and it was an experiment that I had throughout the course of the semester, if they would start to feel comfortable and stop raising their hands and at the end of the course I told them, you know, my one big criticism of you guys, before you give your teacher your evaluation to me, is that you all know how to listen, you're all polite, you all have something to say. So if you know how to listen, you also know how to not talk over somebody, right? So why are you raising your hand? Why aren't you just jumping in, right? So that is my advice, is quit raising your hand. I think I would say I live in the United States, with the current political reality that we're dealing with, especially for LGBT rights. People would always say, oh, what are we gonna do now? This is horrible. All of a sudden it was, you know, we're moving to a certain direction and all of a sudden we swung on the other side and people would ask me, what do we do now? How are you dealing with this, Gina? And sometimes because of my experience being born and raised in the Philippines, I want to honor that experience because in the Philippines we somehow managed to survive even without those political rights, right? And I think it is the reliance with your community, finding that community that wants to support you and love you and be the best possible person that you are. That's allowed me to survive as a young person. I could not ask for better formative years at 15, joining the culture of transgender beauty pageants in the Philippines that allowed me to be myself. I found my best friends, I found my other family. So I suggest to a lot of the youth, just find those communities that want you to be the most successful person that you could be. Anyone else from the floor? I thought, yes, I saw. Please. I almost wasn't about to raise my hand and just ask. But I'm also a global shaper, I'm from a hub in Thailand. So I think this, Miguel reminded me of something important which is that I don't think the youth don't want to speak but we get jailed because jail, I think gender is a fluid concept but so is being jailed in this part of the world. I come from Thailand, people get jailed by notes all the time for things that legally they shouldn't be jailed for. So I'm wondering as a region, we seem to have this problem in different countries in the region. Do you think that as a region we would be more effective if somehow we got together and dealt with this issue as a region rather than trying to deal with it individually as countries? Because we know we can't do it as individuals in a country. Every time I go back home my mother calls me and says, don't say stuff. So I know on an individual level, I cannot. I know that in what happened yesterday in one of the events here, other people also shut down and their heads patted. So what can we do as a region? Do you think that it's more effective as a region? And if so, what is the tactic? So essentially, I think you're asking or maybe even proposing a sort of an ASEAN youth network. Now, it's interesting you mentioned that because there are youth activists from outside of ASEAN who would like to connect with ASEAN youth for precisely the reasons that you mentioned that perhaps the challenges are even are greater and more widespread within that 10 member body than they are elsewhere. Because if you look at ASEAN as one grouping, one nation if you like, then man, you really got a lot of challenges. Is that, would that be effective, do you think, William? I think Forum, for example, is doing a very good job, right? So global shippers, they identify a very youth with a certain cause and gather them together, give them exposure, and then young global leaders. And it's not only for the region, we just have a new president of France, it's a YG alcohol class 2016. So we need to start from somewhere. I think that Forum do a very good job in gathering us around with a different challenge, but there's some silver lining between that challenge. Does having a public profile and all of you here, if you didn't have it before, you certainly have it now, does that help protect you? Does that help give you a platform to spread your message? Sometimes as an underdog, you just need to know that you are not alone in this. So you just need to have a reminder that you're fighting for a cause that matters. And again, there's nothing in stone. And you go back home and you figure out. I think for me outside, profile, public profile, whatever that component entails, for me, just from my personal experience as a young trans girl who had the dream, who grew up poor in the Philippines, who was able to pursue my dream in New York City and to have that realization that after 10 years of living as a model, being in the closet, even my model agent did not know I was trans because it's completely different circumstance at that time, the thing that I tell myself is like, how could I not? How could I not be so public about this? How could I not be so unapologetic about who I am? Because I somehow was given this opportunity to be myself and to have access to certain networks of people. I mean, being here in world economic form, like I certainly, I hope the conversation will continue. I would love to see more transgender people being invited in this panel. I would love to see LGBT rights being discussed more. So I think besides the public profile component, I was, I'm doing it because that sense of gratitude that I was able to live my dream, I just wanted to somehow be vocal about it, whether you consider that giving back, I just want to be vocal with the life that I've lived. Cassandra, you've said, we've all said, Singapore is a very compact place. Would you, or perhaps we are already doing it in some form, but would you be thinking about spreading your advocacy beyond the borders of Singapore? Whether it is through, I mean, certainly it's through a forum like this. But what is your thinking on that? Absolutely, because I think the issues of disability are not just faced within, just in Singapore alone, and it's definitely across ASEAN. A lot of the issues that the 17 million disabled people in ASEAN face is are similar, and fighting for equality on that platform is definitely the same as well, wherever you are in ASEAN. And moving forward from there, looking at different ways where we can create more equality, more space where merit, whatever you do, can help you achieve your dreams in whichever field you choose. I think that's very, very important to me and something I'm passionate about as well. Isn't organizing always a good idea? Sorry. Isn't organizing always a good idea? Going back to the question, you share best practices. You know you're not alone, as William says. You look at the Penn network of writers around the world. They advocate for those writers who are in danger. We make sure that those who are imprisoned are heard amnesty. I mean, there are all of these things that the ASEAN could, especially the youth of ASEAN, can take from organizations that have come together. Because as we started out the session saying, we are the majority, and yet it does seem that we are compartmentalized, pushed aside, and largely disorganized. Well, I think we've all said some quite subversive things today. And I mean subversive not necessarily in terms of overthrowing, but words like protest, activism, democracy, organization, networking, spreading beyond borders. Sounds like a business. Globalization. So yeah, all tremendous food of thought. Coming back to Mark Twain, he talked about sort of, no youth should be pessimists. Well, it doesn't sound like any of you guys are. And I wish you luck. And that's coming not from an old optimist, but from an old pessimist. Thank you all very much. Thank you to all of you on the stage. Thank you to all of you in the audience here and online. Thank you. Thank you.