About the ASEAN Foundation 

Three decades after ASEAN was established, ASEAN Leaders recognised that: there remained inadequate shared prosperity, ASEAN awareness and contact among people of ASEAN. It was of this concern that ASEAN Leaders established the ASEAN Foundation during ASEAN’s 30th Anniversary Commemorative Summit in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia on 15 December 1997.      

After its establishment, the ASEAN Foundation has been tasked to support ASEAN’s community building efforts by promoting greater awareness of the ASEAN identity, human resource development, people-to-people interaction, and close collaboration among the business sector, civil society, academia, and other stakeholders in ASEAN.

We continue to complement ASEAN priorities. To date, we work to strengthen the ASEAN Community.

We work in four thematic areas of education, arts and culture, media development, and community building. We provide support in the form of scholarships, fellowships internships and exchanges. We organise meetings, conferences, roundtables and workshops in support of the ASEAN Community.

About the ASEAN Data Science Explorers (ASEAN DSE) Programme

ASEAN DSE is a flagship programme under the ASEAN Foundation’s partnership with SAP to engage and prepare today’s youth for tomorrow’s ASEAN. One of ASEAN DSE’s objectives is to promote ASEAN awareness among youths across the region, the ASEAN Blueprint 2025, ASEAN Community, and socio-cultural pressing issues in the region. Another objective is to equip tertiary students and educators with digital skills, particularly data analytics skills, they require to thrive in digital economy and Industrial Revolution 4.0.

ASEAN DSE was recognised by the 10 ASEAN leaders as a creative Digital Initiative at the 31st ASEAN Summit in 2017 in Manila, the Philippines, and acknowledged by the ASEAN leaders as a Digital Skills Development initiative to prepare ASEAN youth to be future-ready at the 35th ASEAN Summit in 2019 in Bangkok, Thailand.

The ASEAN Senior Officials Meeting on Youth (SOMY) and Education (SOMED) have endorsed ASEAN DSE as one of the initiatives which contributes to the realisation of the ASEAN Work Plan on Youth and Education 2016 – 2020. It also has been adopted as one of the activities that supports the achievement of the ASEAN Work Plan on Youth 2021-2025.

ASEAN DSE is manifested in two main activities: the enablement session and competition.

ASEAN DSE enablement session is data analytics training using SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) as the main tool for data analytics. It is targeting students and lecturers at the Institutes of Higher Learning (IHL) across the 10 ASEAN Member States (AMS). The session aims to get students and lecturers familiar with SAC as one of the platforms for data analysis and analytics and allow them to explore data analytics skills and other relevant skills (critical thinking, analytical thinking, and problem-solving skills) using SAC. Another objective of the session is to encourage students to participate in ASEAN DSE competition: www.aseandse.org.

ASEAN DSE competition is a regional data analytics competition targeting tertiary students across the 10 AMS. In the competition, the students use SAC to develop data-backed proposals to address pressing socio-economic issues in the region across the six United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, namely (1). SDG 3 – Good Health and Well- being, (2). SDG 4 – Quality Education, (3). SDG 5 – Gender Equality, (4). SDG 8 – Decent Work and Economic Growth, (5). SDG 9 – Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure, and (6) SDG 11 – Sustainable Cities and Communities. In 2021, the focused SDGs are as follows: (1). SDG 6 – Clean Water and Sanitation, (2). SDG 7 – Affordable and Clean Energy, (3). SDG 8 – Decent Work and Economic Growth, (4). SDG 11 – Sustainable Cities and Communities, (5). SDG 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production, and (6). SDG 13 – Climate Action. The competition is held at the national and regional levels with the national level conducted in the 10 AMS and the regional final hosted by the ASEAN country chairing ASEAN. Each national final is attended by 10 shortlisted teams, and the winner of each national final will go through the regional final.

Since its inception in 2017, ASEAN DSE programme has engaged and empowered 16,409 students from 370 higher education institutions across the 10 AMS. It has inspired 2,260 students to successfully come up with data analytics proposals which can help address socio-economic issues in the region. 87% of students partaking ASEAN DSE programme believed that it helped them improve their analytical & critical thinking skills as well as making decision and problem-solving skills. It also helped 73% of the students participating in the programme to understand the ASEAN Blueprint 2025 and ASEAN Community better.

Further information on the ASEAN DSE can be obtained from ASEAN DSE Booklet 2020.

Objective of the Study

The objectives of the Impact Study are as follow:

1. To assess the impact of the ASEAN DSE programme on the improvement of data analytics skills and other relevant skills: critical thinking and problem-solving skills, during the programme implementation period from 2017 to 2021.
2. To assess whether or not the ASEAN DSE programme supports the current works of its beneficiaries who are already employed. If the answer is a Yes, to what extent it provides the support.
3. To examine and document the success factors which enables/disables the programme to create/not to create the impact
4. To document lessons learnt and best practice of the ASEAN DSE programme

How to Apply

All interested applicants whether individuals/organisations/institutions to send application, stating the position with the following documents to procurement@aseanfoundation.org with copy to ilan.asqolani@aseanfoundation.org – a) application letter and a rough proposal of the Impact Study (final version of the proposal will be established upon discussion with the ASEAN Foundation’s team), b) curriculum vitae,  c) samples of impact assessment report and publications, and d) financial proposal specifying a total lump sum amount highlighting deliverables, including traveling cost when deemed necessary.

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATION: 16 July 2021

INQUIRIES: ilan.asqolani@aseanfoundation.org