The Soccsksargen Bloggers is mighty proud for one of its members, Arnold Cesar Romero for having been selected as one of the 500 young people from across the globe rigidly chosen to participate in the annual Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations (HPAIR) Asia Conference, which is ongoing right now from 24-28 August 2012 in Taipei, Taiwan.

HPAIR is Harvard University’s largest annual event in the Asia-Pacific region, welcoming a wide variety of distinguished speakers and future leaders. HPAIR believes that finding common ground in Asian-Pacific economic, political, and social issues is a dynamic and innovative process, which integrates ideas and actions from across Asia, and indeed the whole world.

Since 1991, the annual HPAIR conferences have brought together young men and women from the world’s foremost universities and leaders in the fields of government, business, culture, and academia.

Past speakers at the HPAIR conferences include former President of the Republic of Korea and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Kim Dae-Jung, Governor General of Australia Peter Hollingworth, Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon, President of Singapore S.R. Nathan, former United States Ambassador to Japan John Thomas Schieffer, and former President of Goldman Sachs Philip Murphy.

Arnold will particularly be joining this year’s conference panel on “Defining Private-Public Partnerships in Energy and Environment” which will evaluate how private, public- private, and public organizations can coexist to develop the energy and environment industry, and examine what has worked so far in spurring economic, technological, and political change in countries around the globe.

This topic is very relevant to Mindanao and the Philippines in general as we brace for more power outages, high power rates and the ongoing debate on minerals development as driver for economic growth.

To get updates about the conference, you may follow @notty_romero on Twitter or visit his blog www.letters2mindanao.wordpress.com.

From the Soccsksargen Bloggers, congratulations Notty and continue making us proud!