On 2-5 March 2016, Ridwan Kamil, Mayor of Bandung, visited Vancouver to be a speaker in the Globe 2016 event. A sizeable and very influential meeting in North America, Globe 2016 is a place where businessmen and public servants from all over the world discuss plans for development that is environmentally friendly and sustainable.
In this opportunity, Ridwan Kamil reveals on how expanding and developing Bandung is based on his experiences in the past 17 years of visiting hundreds of cities in the many corners of the world. He has an ‘oath’ that before he reaches the age of 40, both of his feet must have stepped on a hundred cities of the globe. Bandung, under his leadership, now has multitudes of public spaces and parks that has made its residents joyful. Not surprising now that according to a recent study, which exhibited Bandung as being the happiest society in Indonesia.
Work in creating this happiness combined with utilization of the most recent of technologies is a part of the mayor’s vision, and if it is succeeded, will make Bandung a role model for more than 500 other cities in Indonesia.
Other than becoming a speaker in Globe 2016, Ridwan Kamil conducted a meeting with many companies in British Columbia. One of them includes Trans Link, a prime provider of public transportation. He also attended an event at the Consulate General of the Republic of Indonesia, which offered him the opportunity to meet residents in Vancouver of Indonesian and Bandung descent, prior to going to the airport to journey back to the archipelago.
Throughout his visits, the man nicknamed Emil is still able to utilize his time to conduct his hobby of photography in Stanley Park, experiencing the Aqua Bus in Science World, visiting Granville Island, and even ‘hanging out’, by slurping down a glass of warm chocolate milk in a café, whilst immersing himself with the humming of the passing foot traffic under the warm lights of downtown in the evening. He records everything, in the form of sketches or poems, etched in a yellow book which he grips everywhere he goes.
For Ridwan Kamil, Vancouver is a special city. Clean and orderly. Its residents are full of smiles. A value he values as similar to the people of Bandung. And that is why he believes that it is befitting for Bandung and Vancouver to be Sister Cities, as he exclaims in an exclusive interview with TVRI.
Here’s hoping!
Dalam pidatonya di ajang Globe 2016 di Vancouver, Ridwan Kamil menegaskan bahwa konsep pembangunan Bandung yang kini dikenal dengan ruang publiknya yang ramah dan penuh inovasi, merupakan buah dari pengalaman panjangnya menjelajahi lebih dari 100 kota dunia. Sebagai arsitek dan pemimpin kota, Emil memadukan kebahagiaan warganya dengan teknologi mutakhir untuk menciptakan kota yang tidak hanya nyaman, tetapi juga menjadi model inspiratif bagi ratusan kota lain di Indonesia.
Ia percaya bahwa kota bahagia adalah kota yang inklusif, hijau, dan manusiawi — nilai-nilai yang ia pelajari selama hampir dua dekade perjalanan internasionalnya. Bandung kini dikenal sebagai kota dengan tingkat kebahagiaan tertinggi di Indonesia, bukti nyata bahwa kebijakan yang berpihak pada ruang publik dan inovasi teknologi berdampak langsung pada kualitas hidup warga. Emil pun berharap Bandung dapat menjadi percontohan transformasi urban di tingkat nasional, sebagaimana Vancouver telah menginspirasinya.
