Indonesia Council Open Conference, 2005

[Adelaide, 26-27 September 2005]

Being the only surveyor presenting in a social science conference is an interesting experience. The Indonesia Council Open Conference, 2005 is an annual conference hosted by Flinders University in Adelaide with the support of The Flinders Asia Centre and the Inside Indonesia magazine, where my presentation is the only technical paper among many social papers presented. Being a social science conference, almost all presentations are about to social issue, especially, of the Indonesian society.

The topics presented were vast and diverse from the literacy issues to Indonesia's future. Most of the topics might not be interested for a surveyor/geodesist. Therefore it is not important to discuss each topic here.

I presented my paper, "Maritime Boundary Delimitation between Indonesia and Timor Leste: A Technical Perspective", on 26 September 2005 in the session of Boundaries, migration and foreign policy. Being the only technical paper, the presentation attracted intention form most audiences and also drew some interesting questions and comments. Different from the other presentation which were filled with words, my presentation was dominated with graphics and pictures [maps]. All the technical aspects I introduced coupled with legal consideration [law of the sea] in defining maritime boundaries were quite interesting to the audiences. This, I belive, was a good moment to remind them surveryor's contribution to such an international matter (i.e maritime boundaries).

A senior lecturer from Deakin University, Dr. Damien Kingsbury gave very good comments and suggestions regarding my research, as he significantly knew East Timorese views about the maritime boundaries in question. He also promised to introduce me to an East Timorese geographer who is currently dealing with the Boundary issue. This will be a very good information resource.

To sum up, apart from the fact that the conference is more about social science, it was still a very good event to share ideas, especially to enrich the resource of my research as a multi-disciplinary one.

For more information please visit the website. Please also contact me for a proceeding containing colection of abstracts.