Winners Netherlands - Asia Pacific Video Competition announced

During the Wubbo Ockels School annual event Climate Adaptation and Water, on March 21, the five winners of the Netherlands – Asia Pacific Student Short-Video Competition for Climate and Sustainable Development in Cities were announced. The top prize of € 2,000 went to Erlangga Abyantara for his video '15 Minute City, New Urban Centers in Bandung, Indonesia’.

Abantyara uses innovative sustainable city ideas to confront traffic congestion, air pollution, climate change, and declining environmental quality in the city of Bandung. He visualises polycentric structures through the use of rich spatial data analysis to identify alternative city centre locations. These local centres would allow for easier neighbourhood access to goods and services.

The video competition focused on cities. Around the world, cities are responding to the urgent issue of climate change and the need for sustainable development for their people. Cities are actively engaged with international efforts for climate mitigation and adaptation and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and finding local solutions. Leaders of cities, neighborhood groups and citizens are coming together to realize new visions for their cities.

Many students have been conducting very interesting research on climate and sustainable development as part of their studies. The idea of the student short video competition is to encourage students to build on their research and writing which they have conducted for their BA thesis, Master thesis, or PhD dissertation and to consider ways to reach out and communicate their ideas to reach a wider public audience.

The winners

The jury selected 5 videos and awarded:

• 1st place: '15 Minute City, New Urban Centers in Bandung, Indonesia' by Erlangga Abyantara, Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB), Bachelor of Science in Urban and Regional Planning, and Mikail Kaysan Leksmana
• 2nd place: 'New Building Techniques for Climate and Sustainability: Double skin facade for ventilation' by Cynthia Permata Dewi, PhD Candidate, Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), Yogyakarta, Indonesia
• 3 runners up:
  'Sustainable Pest Management: Avoiding pesticides for biological conrol to support biodiversity and the fostering of healthier ecosystems' by Rabia Ali, PhD Candidate in Applied Biosciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
  'Gotong Royong, Community Cooperation and Learning in Indonesia' by Angga Kurniajati, Arta Aditya, and Auliya Widyaningrum Pratiwi Sulaiman Putri, BA students, department of Development Geography, Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and
  'Innovation and Greening of the City for Climate Adaptation: Singapore' by Mayur Manoi Jagapure, PhD student in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore

These videos have been selected for viewing on TV monitors both locally and internationally, to join the local to the global, in the House of Connections and the Forum in Groningen, and at a venue in or near the Osaka Expo 2025 in Japan, to demonstrate the close links of the Netherlands and the Asia Pacific.