A fruitful visit for MSM in Indonesia

In the first week of July Maastricht School of Management CEO Meinhard Gans and MSM Project Manager Huub Mudde visited Indonesia for the opening of a joint MSM-IPB office in Bogor, and the end and beginning of Capacity building projects.

Animal logistics on the agenda in Indonesia
On July 4, Dr. Arif Satria, rector of IPB University in Bogor, Indonesia, and Meinhard Gans, CEO MSM, stressed the importance of and the positive, amicable energy in the strategic cooperation between the two institutions, which started almost 15 years ago. Dr Arif and Mr Gans were keynote speakers at a seminar in Bogor titled ‘Optimizing the Use of Camara Ships to Improve Efficiency of Livestock Transportation Systems’. This seminar marked the end of the successful project ‘Animal Logistics Indonesia – Netherlands (ALIN)’.

Over a period of more than four years, MSM and IPB worked together in setting-up education and research programs on animal logistics, supported by experts from Aeres and Wageningen University. Among others, the project achieved to have animal logistics as a priority area included in the Indonesian national research and development agenda. Furthermore, guided by MSM, IPB has managed to set-up a financially self-sustained multi-stakeholder platform for knowledge generation, sharing and dissemination on animal logistics: FLPI www.flpi-alin.net.

In the sideline of the seminar, IPB and MSM agreed to further explore cooperation in strengthening triple helix constructs for innovative agro-based developments with a specific attention for major opportunities of big data, blockchain technology, and other digital technologies, in short ‘Industry 4.0’.

MSM-IPB joint office opened
On July 5, Meinhard Gans, CEO MSM, and Prof. Damayanti Buchori, IPB University in Bogor, Indonesia, ceremonially opened in Bogor the joint collaboration office of MSM and the Centre of Transdisciplinary and Sustainable Sciences of IPB. This office is meant to become a hotspot for creative ideas on sustainability, a cradle for projects, research and education, a location for training, and a working place for staff and (exchange) students. It was agreed to pilot later this year with a sustainability course for Indonesian companies and to seek funding for capacity building in the framework of the SDGs.

In addition, to mark the collaboration, a young mango tree was planted in the hope that it would bear many fruits, just like it was hoped that this new MSM-IPB cooperation would also be fruitful.

Indonesian Vocational education project formally started
On July 5, Meinhard Gans, CEO MSM, undersigned a contract at and with the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Jakarta. This formal moment marked the start of a two-year project on strengthening technical vocational education and training (TVET). In this project the poultry and dairy vocational programs in 10 TVET colleges are foreseen to become more gender sensitive, labour-market driven and certified. A national Triple Helix Advisory platform will be established that is meant to steer the process of agribusiness driven poultry and dairy programs during and (possibly) after the project, poultry and dairy educational programs will be formulated and certified and staff trained, and project achievements and lessons learned will be disseminated to a wider group of institutions and teachers. In this project, MSM will cooperate with Aeres in the Netherlands and the College of Vocational Studies of IPB University in Bogor, Indonesia (SV-IPB).