Post by Dr. Ian Chew

Absolute delight to have won the pitch competition at the recently concluded Young Trilateral Leadership Summit in Osaka, Japan! A big shoutout to the organizing team from the U.S. Department of State, in particular the US Embassy of Tokyo and Seoul, the US Consulate for the Osaka-Kobe Region, US Embassy to Thailand (Aaron Snipe, Jason Cubas, Sarah Belousov, Joshua Lustig, Adisorn Laopiroon, Ryuji Sakata, Grace Lee, Helen von Gohren, Walid Zafar, Khalil ibrahim, Matsui Komachi) and Temple University Japan (Matthew Wilson, May-yi Shaw, Geo Otsu, William J. Swinton) And to my teammates (Elizabeth Katherine Gamarra, MSW, MS, PhD, SeungHwan Kim, Yesun Kim, Karin Shinohara), many kudos for the hardwork put in - we did it! This short leadership retreat was not short of learnings, thanks to the many session hosts and guest panelists who delivered insightful takes on a plethora of topics: from holistic security to cross-cultural business nuances. And for that, my heartiest gratitude to Ambassador William Grayson, Consul-General Chang Soo Jin, Commissioner Yasushi Misawa, Commissioner Younghwan Park Katsumi Matsushiro (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan), Jihoon Lee (Consulate General of Korea in Osaka), Haruko Satoh (Osaka University), John Bradford (Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studies), Hanna Song, Yosuke Yamashiki (Kyoto University), Preetha Rajaraman, Hyeonjin Kim, Aya Wada, Marcus Consolini, Steve Park, Mikiya nambu, Rintaro Nishimura, Soraya Umewaka, Kaoru Utada, Sachiyo Yamada, Brendan Gaffney. As the only representative from Singapore, and one of five representatives from non-trilateral nations, I would also like to express my thanks to Imma Suganda, Ian Yip) and all the folks from the US Mission to ASEAN and US embassy of Singapore for trusting me to represent Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI) at this annual gathering. Last but not least, to all my fellow delegates, thank you for being the passion that kept the whole event on fire. And while we each depart to our various countries and cities, let us keep the spirit of trilateralism+ in all of us as we embark on our individual journies to make the world a better and safer place. Jungen Ono Jihyun Lee Iku Tsujihiro Hasumi Tani Joon Choi Haruka Chunhyang Satake Takami Yasuhara