On 9 March, 2017, JSPS Alumni Association of Indonesia (JAAI) convened Inauguration of JAAI at Century Park Hotel Senayan Jakarta, Indonesia.

The Inauguration ceremony started off with a traditional Indonesian dance, followed by welcome address by Prof. Dr. Subyakto, president of JAAI, Mr. Takaaki Iwasa, Executive Director of JSPS, Prof. Dr. Iskandar Zulkarnain , Chairman of LIPI and representative of Directorate General of Resource for Science, Technology and Higher Education (DG-RSTHE).

Commemorative Lecture was delivered by Prof. Dr. Mitsuyasu Hasebe, National Institute for Basic Biology, National Institute of Natural Science under the title “What I Was and May be Appreciated as a Basic Plant Scientist ”. Prof. Hasebe has close relationship with Indonesian researchers, which started since about 30 years ago through JSPS program. He explained how do our own satisfactions in fulfilling personal curiosities result in other people’s benefits, such as “potential usefulness”, “satisfy curiosities of other people”, “make people remember curiosities” and “enhance international communications” based on his experiences.
And he concluded his presentation by saying that basic science is beneficial for societies, countries and people all over the world, and the best way to increase the benefits for community in general is to increase the number of basic scientists.
All participants were impressed with his lecture, especially his attitude to respect everyone’s curiosity and interesting.

Afternoon session began with presentation of 4 Indonesian Principal Investigators who has been adopted project “Bilateral Collaborations” or “Core-to-Core Program”, and Dr. Wahyu Dwianto as moderator.

The name and affiliation of the investigators were below.
1. Prof. Dr. Eddy Hermawan, Center for Application of Atmospheric Science and Climate of National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (LAPAN)
2. Dr. Jarnuzi Gunlazuadi, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Mathematics and Sciences, University of Indonesia
3. Dr. Adrin Tohari, Research Center for Geotechnology, Indonesian Institute of Sciences(LIPI)
4. Prof. Dr. Irfan D. Prijambada, Gadjah Mada University

The last program was the introduction of success story of JSPS program by 2 JSPS fellows, Dr. Yopi, Enzimology, Glycoscience, Biochemistry, Bioprocess Engineering Research Center for Biotechnology, Indonesian Institute of Sciences and Prof. Christofora Hanny Wijaya, Department of Food Science and Technology, Faculty of Agricultural Technology, Bogor Agricultural University.

For the 1st General Assembly, they discussed future plan of JAAI. Next year marks the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Indonesia and Japan. LIPI is going to hold commemorative ceremony in October this year, and also JAAI is going to hold international academic symposium in cooperation with LIPI and JSPS.