Mr. Danang Parikesit
Chairperson, International Forum for Rural Transport and Development
Mr. Danang Parikesit is a leading transportation expert in Asia. He is a university professor of transportation studies at the Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) in Indonesia, the oldest state university in Indonesia. He started his Civil and Environmental Engineering education in the Faculty of Engineering at UGM in 1983, received his B.Sc. Degree in 1986, and followed by his Engineering Degree (Ir.) in 1988. He also received a Master’s degree from the Institute for Transport Studies (ITS) of Leeds University, UK, in 1990, and a Doctoral degree (with predicate summa cum laude) from the Institute for Transport Planning and Engineering of Vienna University of Technology, Austria in 1996. In his academic capacity, he teaches students and supervises PhD candidates in transport and infrastructure at UGM, and other leading Indonesian universities such as UNDIP and the University of Indonesia and gave guest lectures at numerous universities and organizations worldwide, including at the University of Sydney, Harvard University, University of New South Wales, and the Nepal Engineering College. Mr. Parikesit is actively involved in international collaborative research, consultancies and national advisory committees in the transport and urban development field. In 1996, he assisted TU Wien in Austria to manage the EU-funded project OPTIMA. Between 2006 and 2008, he was involved in an international research project on sustainable transportation in the East Asian Megacities – a project leading to an international textbook to be published by Springer-Verlag in 2012. Between 2008 and 2010, he successfully led and managed the collaborative research project with UGM and the University of Sydney entitled Governance Reform initiativE in the trAnsporT sector (GREAT) funded by AusAID. The work has been a reference for PPP reform in Indonesia. His current international work includes an Indonesian – French collaborative research program leading to PhD degrees on the integration between urban mobility and regional railway system design. Since 2011, he initiated a Railway Oriented Development and a new railway line project in the greater Jakarta, new logistics hub in West Java, and an integrated economic development corridor in North Sumatera.