Yogyakarta, July 16th 2020—The Department of Social Development and Welfare (Departemen Pembangunan Sosial dan Kesejahteraan/PSdK) held another Social Development Talks (Sodet) event and brought a theme about women’s agency in vulnerable groups in Jakarta. In this occasion, the discussion was moderated by Milda L. Pinem, Ph.D., a lecturer of the Department of Social and Welfare and the event presented a speaker from Faculty of Law UGM, Sri Wiyanti Eddyono, Ph.D. The discussion was held online on WebEx and live on the YouTube. This discussion was the third of the Sodet Series which have been held since June 2020.

In this occasion, the discussion topic was referred to a book with the title Women’s Empowerment in Indonesia which was written by the speaker. In that book there were seven chapters and for this discussion it focused on the topic of women’s agency. The book was a research publication which was done by the speaker in an informal village in Jakarta, known as Kampung Rawa. In her research, the speaker tried to connected the dots between the concept of the importance of women’s agency in the women’s empowerment. read more

Yogyakarta, 15^th July 2020—The Public Policy Management Family or also known as Gamapi Fisipol UGM held a sharing session with alumni of the department on Wednesday night called Hi Alumni!. The Hi Alumni! Vol. 2 Road to Scholarships: Life After University event was held in Instagram Live. The event had two speakers; Citra Sekartaji, a 2011 alumni who is also a LPDP scholarship awardee for the University of Birmingham and Dimas Wahyudi, a 2015 alumni who works at Fisipol UGM’s CDC. This sharing session was divided into two sessions which includes a session about the LPDP scholarship and a session about how to make an ideal CV. Echa, the host of Hi Alumni! Vol. 2, started the first session at 7 pm and the second session at 8 pm.Cirta Sekartaji, an awardee of the LPDP 2016 scholarship, now works as an assistant researcher in the UGM’s Center for Population and Policy. She also works in the cooperation section of Leadership and Policy Innovation Magistrate and Doctor in UGM’s Postgraduate School. In this first session, Sekar explained her experience when she got the scholarship from LPDP under the Finance Ministry to go to the University of Birmingham. Because the scholarship is given to the Finance Ministry, Citra will have to go back to Indonesia after her study to contribute to the nation.

The LPDP scholarship varies. There is the regular scholarship, scholarship for children who went to religious schools, athletes, dissertations, doctors, and many more. Sekar explained that the LPDP policy now and in 2016 is slightly different in terms of the application to the selection process. Before, we were able to choose one university of our choice, but now that choice is narrowed down to three choices in the list. The selection process also used to not be done through the computer.

Based on Sekar’s experience, the difference between the University of Birmingham and Gadjah Mada University is apparent in it’s academic area. In the University of Birmingham, reading a literature is mandatory before we go to class, unlike many universities in Indonesia where we are free to read or not to read. “The difference that is most apparent is in the academic area. read more

Yogyakarta, July 13^th 2020—Electronic Based Government System usage is rising in many countries in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, including in Indonesia. However, Indonesia is still lagging according to the indicator of the telecommunication infrastructure.That statement was made during a press conference to analyze the United Nations Digital Governance 2020 ‘E-Government Survey 2020’ report by the Center for Digital Society (CfDS) UGM researcher team. In that report, it is found that digital technology has been the go-to for many sectors, especially in the middle of quarantine. In the governance sector, e-government’s existence is meant to increase public service, society’s participation, as well as to increase transparency and accountability.

Based on that report, Indonesia ranks 88^th in the global scale of e-government implementation. Indonesia is one of the country that have a high rate of e-government system implementation, especially in the Online Service Index (OSI) and Human Capital Index (HCI). Aside from that, Indonesia also ranks high in the e-government development index compared to other ASEAN countries.

Despite the promising rankings, there are still several obstacles that need to be overcome in terms of Indonesia’s e-government system implementation. The first is the lack of accessibility. Hopefully, the e-government system implementation is not just centered in Jakarta or the Java island, but also spread all over Indonesia. read more

Yogyakarta, 11 July 2020—Institute of International Studies, part of the Department of International Relations UGM, organized the ninth episode of online serial discussion Beyond the Great Wall under the theme of “China: Issues Amidst the New Normal”.

The discussion, conducted through Google Meet, invited Julian Lilihata–an alumnus of Tsinghua University–speaking on “The Second Wave of Corona in Beijing” and Arrizal Anugerah Jaknanihan, a student in Department of International Relations UGM, delivering his presentation themed “From Beijing to the Streets of Hong Kong: How Student Protests Shape Democratization Movements in Beijing”. Present, also, was Dr. Nur Rachmat Yuliantoro, Head of International Relations Department UGM, acting as the moderator of the discussion. read more

Yogyakarta, July 10th 2020—Center for Digital Society (CfDS) UGM came back with its discussion called Digitalk #42: Application of Technology for MSME Acceleration. In this occasion, CfDS collaborated with Paper.id, a software which targeted the business people as their users. Paper.id provided online invoicing service which commonly manually made in the other softwares. Established since 2016, Paper.id already cooperated with more than 10.000 companies, including the big platform such as Tokopedia. Yogia Sugialam as the CTO of Paper.id became the speaker in this discussion, along with Amelinda Pandu as the Project Officer of CfDS as the moderator. The discussion was held on the Google Meet platform on Friday (10/7) from 03.30 p.m. to 05.00 p.m. read more

Yogyakarta, July 9th 2020—In its 63rd Dies Natalis, the Department of Social Development and Welfare held a webinar called ‘CSR for the Community Empowerment in Facing COVID-19 Crisis’. Even though they have held a webinar with the topic ‘CSR Role in the Crisis Management of COVID-19’, the Department of Social Development and Welfare offered novelty in this webinar. The topic in this webinar was focused to see the role of two actors—the company through its CSR and the community—collaboratively. read more

Studying abroad is the dream of many students, including Maria Yohanna Widianti Satriyo. This Social Development and Welfare department university student in Fisipol UGM batch 2017 had a chance to exchange to Australia for one semester.

She decided to take a leave from her department for a semester to fly to the kangaroo island in February 2020. In Australia, Maria studied offline for three weeks and online for two months due to the pandemic. The Fisipol Media had a chance to interview Maria through the phone. When this article is released, Maria would have already been in Indonesia, awaiting her study result. read more

Yogyakarta, July 6^th 2020—Jamaah Muslim Fisipol (JMF) conducted the NGOPI discussion titled “The Complicated Matter of Papua Racism: What is still lacking?” with Zaki Arrobi, a professor from the Sociology Department, as the speaker last Monday through the Google Meet platform.

Zaki opened the discussion by reflecting on the universality of Islam’s fight against racism. “A lot of historian in the early years of Islam said that a lot of slaves were freed by the prophet’s friends, which are assabiqunal awwalun. Historians also said that Islam spread mainly because of its egalitarianism,” Zaki said. read more

Yogyakarta, July 6^th 2020—The Department of Public Policy Management Center for Research (Puska MKP), held a webinar titled “Bridging the Gaps; Policy Design vs the Readiness of Elementary and Middle School Education Implementation”. The webinar had three speakers in the first session. The three of them were Agustinus Subarsono, Ph.D, as the Director of Puska MKP UGM; Prof. Dr. Ainun. Naim, The Secretary General of Education and Culture Ministry; and Abetnego Tarigan, Deputy III of the President Staff office. This webinar was opened by Prof. Dr. Erwan Agus Purwanto, M.Si as Fisipol UGM dean. read more

Yogyakarta, 5 July 2020—Serial discussion Ngopi (Ngobrol Pagi) #4 was virtually held on 5 July, 2020, discussing  the pandemic, institutional capacity-building, and development of online people’s market. Departemen Ilmu Komunikasi/Department of Communication Sciences UGM as the organizer of the event invited Dr. Hempri Suyatna, S. Sos., M.Si. as a lecturer in the Department of Social Development and Welfare UGM, Rindu Sanubari Mashita Firdaus, S.I.P., M.Sc. as a researcher in the Center for Studies on People’s Economy, and Achniah Damayanti, S.I.P., M.Sc. as a lecturer in the Department of Communication Sciences UGM. The two-hour discussion provided insights on the existence of people’s market during the pandemic, which had to adapt with innovations, as well as overcome challenges by shifting into a virtual market. read more