The ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE) participated in the celebration of ASEAN’s 49th anniversary at the ASEAN Secretariat (ASEC), Jakarta (Indonesia).  ASEAN’s anniversary itself falls on every 8 August, but this year, the celebration was held on 15 August due to ASEC’s schedule.  Unlike last year, the activity to share information about ASEAN’s programmes and entities to the public was not done with an exhbition.  ASEC opted instead to showcase ASEAN and its diversity through a series of performance.  ASEAN Secretariat invited ASEAN entities like ACE and the ASEAN Foundation to showcase their programmes/specialties on stage in front of a selected audience.

As the performance programme aimed to inform the public about the diversity of ASEAN as an organisation and community, ASEC invited local students and its friends from the general public.  Taking the audience into consideration, ACE decided to introduce the concept of renewable energy & energy conservation in a fun and comprehensible way. For that reason, ACE organised a drawing contest prior to the event, involving elementary and high school students who are invited by ASEC.  Dozens of pictures depicting renewable energy and energy conservation arrived on ACE’s desk.  After some deliberation using a scoring system, 10 (ten) winners were chosen.

ACE announced the winners on stage on the celebration day and presented them with interesting prizes.  But prior to the awards ceremony, some of ACE’s technical officers led an interactive quiz using the winners’ pictures; making the audience guess if the featured pictures were about renewable energy or energy conservation.  Hopefully, the students learned more about energy and started to be motivated to save energy.  News on the event appeared on The Jakarta Post.  Happy ASEAN Day!