Malaysia Forum 2011 Conference. Ideas for London please!

There has been an MF conference since 2004 -- in 2008, it was held in the northeastern US for the first time. It has since been held there every spring because of the (relatively) dense Malaysian population in the northeast. The conference merely exists to bring Malaysians/MFers of various stripes together to talk about the things which matter to us. You can finally meet that person you've been corresponding with on Kopitiam, or strike up new friendships which continue online well after the conference. Many of us have come away from the MF conference with a newfound sense of pride and hope for our country's future, just because of the discussions we've had.

The first thing you should know is that MF is totally open -- anybody who wants to help can join the steering committee mailing list (just send MF London an email and we'll put you through to the right people). Or if you just want to be on the mailing list and contribute ideas and suggestions, we can get you on the mailing list as well. You can even send this blog post to someone who you think would be interested. If you haven't already, we would also like to invite you to join the general MF mailing lists (Announce and Kopitiam).

It's not always clear to everyone what MF is. To be honest, a lot of us are still figuring that out for ourselves. One thing we can all agree on: MF is about people. We hope to foster a civil discussion of issues which concern Malaysians, and menjalinkan hubungan yang lebih erat antara Malaysians who share this hope. There are also all sorts of resulting spinoffs from this -- you'll find MFers are a very diverse bunch and do a lot of different things. However, MF is fundamentally non-partisan -- as an entity and community, we do not stand with any political party or interest group, although individual MFers are welcome to take a stand of their own. More info here.

If you are based in the northeastern US, you can have a direct hand in the conference's organisation. It looks like it will be held in Boston this time. We'll soon be coming up with specific plans for the venue, sponsorship, discussions, and speakers -- your ideas and plans are not merely welcome, but required! This is your conference.

But for us in London who cannot physically attend -- this is still our conference! Last year, we organised a concurrent gathering to via a webcast of UN assistant secretary-general for economic development KS Jomo's session. This year, we can do the same for most sessions if there is enough interest but I think we should step up our game.

We can follow in the footsteps of MF KL who held a session which the guys in America tuned in to via the webcast. That was a panel on religious freedom that was moderated by Khairy Jamaluddin. I believe we can do something similar here. There are many interesting people in the UK who have important things to share about Malaysia. Some are UK-based Malaysians and some are non-Malaysians but with valuable insight to share (such as professors and people in NGOs whose object of work is Malaysia).

Or, we can do something completely new and different! It's up to us to decide and see if our brethren in America will take the bait.

So, get the comments script burning with ideas then!