SAYEF 2025: A Regional Youth Coalition Powering Southeast Asia’s Energy Transition

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SAYEF 2025: A Regional Youth Coalition Powering Southeast Asia’s Energy Transition

1 October 2025

By Bryan Yong

Across borders and sectors, Youth for Energy Southeast Asia (Y4E-SEA) is turning regional connections into policy influence. The Southeast Asia Youth Energy Forum (SAYEF) 2025 in Kuala Lumpur unites youth, industry, and ministers for intergenerational dialogue, practical collaboration, and a Southeast Asia Youth Energy Declaration, showcasing a coalition built for just, affordable, and secure clean energy across the region.

Amira Bilqis was 15 when she had to swim through Jakarta’s floodwaters to get to school and sit for exams. While climate change was a key driver for her arduous commute, with sea levels in Indonesia rising at unprecedented rates, she felt this was not supposed to be normal.

The following year, Amira expected to swim to school again, but the flood never came after Jakarta enforced local flood‑mitigation measures that eased the floodwater problem, such as the Jakarta Urgent Flood Mitigation Project. It was a relief, and it shaped her path. She realised policy can change real outcomes. She knew then that she wanted to be involved in energy policy, public affairs and policymaking.

Today, she is a public policy student at the University of Melbourne and serves on the Youth Council to the Director‑General of IRENA (2024–2026), an intergovernmental organisation that champions renewable energy. She previously worked on energy modelling and policy planning at the ASEAN Centre for Energy, and has represented youth at high‑level forums including the G7 and G20 Youth Summits, the EU‑ASEAN Youth Summit, the BRICS Youth Energy Summit, the UN ESCAP Asian and Pacific Energy Forum, and the Southeast Asia Youth Energy Forum.

She told EcoCupid that if she were to pitch a policy on energy transition, her approach would be a just energy transition that balances the energy trilemma: security, affordability for people and sustainability.

“Because energy transitions are not short, intergenerational partnerships and collaboration are what I want to strive for in energy policy,” said the 28‑year‑old.

An Ally and Friend

In 2022, at the Youth Economic Forum 2022 in Malaysia, organised by the Perdana Fellow Alumni Associations (PFAA), Amira met Thailand’s Jitsai Santaputra through a mutual friend. They were both speakers at the event which included topics such as post-pandemic resilience and sustainability. Five minutes of conversation revealed the same gap they had each been feeling: Southeast Asia lacked a shared platform for youth in energy. Africa had one, Europe had one, Latin America had one. Southeast Asia did not.

“I felt like I [was] doing all of this alone in the region. Many young energy professionals and students have been doing things on their own,” said Amira.

Armed with a newfound ally, Amira pitched an idea that had been brewing. Over the next three months, the pair kept up frequent calls, traded notes and stayed in motion. Three months later, they met in Jakarta and launched Youth for Energy Southeast Asia — a network of youths working to drive Southeast Asia’s energy transition.

Youth for Energy Southeast Asia (Y4E‑SEA) is the birth child of good networking and chance encounters. Amira brings a public‑policy and intergovernmental lens, and Jitsai brings private‑sector and bankability instincts. That chemistry set the tone for a rapidly growing community for the region’s youth energy transition.

Around them, the team became a pool of non‑mainstream expertise: nuclear, oil and gas, coal, finance, youth organisers and students. The mix produces diverse voices, fresh ideas and new insights. Amira points out that Y4E‑SEA’s members cannot be experts in everything, and they are early in their careers as new roles keep emerging. Having the network helps widen what each person can see and do in the energy policy space.

“For example, someone can summarise a new policy in Vietnamese with no English translation. It elevates personal skills and helps you perform at your job,” said the Y4E‑SEA co‑founder.

A Shared Platform for Youths in Energy

Y4E‑SEA’s growth is deliberate. They are mapping and engaging national and local youth‑and‑energy organisations across Southeast Asia for organisational membership, alongside roughly 700 individual members. The aim is to serve as a catalyst among youth groups in the region, not just another logo in the ecosystem.

The network also functions like a hive. It raises the credibility of everyone inside it and opens doors, especially across borders. Amira says it is easier to meet ministers or high‑level representatives outside your country.

“I have never met the Minister of Energy of Indonesia, but Jitsai has met him twice. That is how it works: we build our credibility between our fellow friends in the region and also nationally,” said Amira.

Going Regional for Energy Transition

A regional push can seem unrealistic when each Southeast Asian country moves at a different pace, with different politics, price pressures and resource endowments. The question is whether an umbrella approach can meaningfully move policy when national realities pull in different directions.

For Amira, regional cohesion is practical. Looking at energy transition on a regional scale is not about competition and ranking between countries, but rather peer collaboration and healthy benchmarking, said the Y4E‑SEA co‑founder.

“I would strongly argue that it is important for us to actually see what the other countries are doing and what we can do in our country learning from them.”

She also noted that each country in the region has varying resources. For example, a city‑state like Singapore cannot rely on land‑intensive wind or solar at scale, so they are working closely with Cambodia and Laos, which predominantly generate hydropower.

Southeast Asia Youth Energy Forum (SAYEF) 2025

To demonstrate the regional energy transition logic to its fullest, Y4E‑SEA goes back where it all began, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to organise the Southeast Asia Youth Energy Forum (SAYEF) 2025, between 10–12 October 2025.

In its second instalment, SAYEF 2025 is a regional initiative designed to empower young leaders to shape Southeast Asia’s energy future through intergenerational dialogue, direct policymaker engagement and collaboration on clean energy and sustainability.

Meticulously scheduled three days before the 43rd ASEAN Energy Ministers’ Meeting on 16 October 2025, which is also in Kuala Lumpur, the summit is intergenerational by design. SAYEF 2025 makes it feasible, and even beneficial, for energy policymakers and private sectors to attend alongside youths from various sectors.

Among the invited panelists include prominent regional figures across disciplines such as national movements Women in Energy Indonesia and Reboot Philippines Renewable Energy Transition Institute (RebootPH), Malaysia’s leading solar energy company Solarvest Holdings Berhad, and the Malaysian Nuclear Agency.

Amira wants Southeast Asian youths to be united through sharing, learning and empathising with the region’s common but differentiated energy issues. Among the activities for the three‑day summit on Southeast Asia’s energy transition are an essay‑competition finalists’ presentation, a site visit to see renewable energy setups in Sunway City, Malaysia, and an interactive project‑incubator labs for all participants.

Amira is frank about the challenge of organising the summit.

“It is tough,” she said.

“The team is so ambitious about bringing a lot of speakers from various fields, because we know a lot of people and we want them to shape our young people.”

She also explains that financial support is limited, and getting buy‑ins from the ASEAN Secretariat, ASEAN Ministers of Energy and the ASEAN Centre for Energy is tricky. And since this is the first time they are organising SAYEF, there are many lessons to learn.

A Practical Youth Declaration

The highlight of SAYEF 2025 will be the intergenerational statement through a Southeast Asia Youth Energy Declaration, representing all Southeast Asian countries, including Timor‑Leste.

The declaration is built for continuity, not a one‑off statement. Amira and the research team are setting up a tiered approach that aligns with the region’s five‑year energy planning cycle.

“This year we focus on raising awareness of how youth should be involved and what concerns young people most in the energy transition, and calling for action reflecting workshop discussions.”

“Change cannot happen in one single meeting,” said Amira firmly. “Youth need to give consistent assistance or support to policymakers for our [energy transition] advocacy, and receive consistent support from policymakers so more young people can be relevant in a changing workforce.”

A small policy once stopped the floods in Amira’s neighbourhood. If a youth‑driven regional declaration can help spur the right policies, grounded in people and access, perhaps more than a simple walk to school will be dry.

Registration for SAYEF 2025 is open till 7 October 2025. Please register via this link.

Alternatively, please visit www.youthenergysea.com/sayef/ for more info.

EcoCupid is a official media partner for SAYEF 2025.

(Edited by Angela Tan)

Our featured Eco-Hero

Youth for Energy Southeast Asia (Y4E-SEA) is a youth-led network advancing Southeast Asia’s just energy transition. Based in Southeast Asia (regional network with members across ASEAN), Youth for Energy Southeast Asia focuses on representation, career growth, and collaboration in clean energy. You can reach out to them via their website https://www.youthenergysea.com/, LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/y4e-sea/, and Instagram (@youthenergysea)

Bryan Yong

Bryan Yong is a freelance environmental journalist and chief editor for EcoCupid. With a background in oceanography and experience volunteering with youth environmental NGOs in Malaysia, he brings curiosity and enthusiasm to discover Southeast Asia’s environmental movement through his stories. Bryan is an avid traveller and loves local food the most.

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