Welcome to The Conundrum Journal!

The name is Andhyta Firselly Utami and—for efficiency reasons—people call me Afu. As per updating this page, I just finished my journey as a public policy student at Harvard University’s JFK School of Government. The two years I spent there had been one of the most formative chapters in my life; beyond a marathon for the brain, it was an invitation to revisit how I regard myself and the world around me. Aside from friendships, I also discovered a fondness (I didn’t know I have) for knowledge and the business of making it accessible to many.

My master’s capstone analysis focused on the implementation of village fund in Indonesia and I made my family proud when my professor nominated it as the most outstanding across my program. It didn’t win the award, but still counts! From then on, I decided to walk on a path that would allow me to learn more about development economics.

Prior to grad school, I attempted to fight climate change by improving transparency in the forestry and energy sectors with World Resources Institute, a global environmental-economic think tank. In parallel, I’m into convincing young people that politics and public policy is cool, including through leading initiatives like Parlemen Muda Indonesia. Even today, I continue to contribute—no matter how small—through the organization I co-founded, Indonesian Future Leaders, and the organization that appointed me to lead the Indonesian delegation to Y20 Summit in 2013, Indonesian Youth Diplomacy.

I would say that The Conundrum Journal contains ideas and sentiments that are too personal to be published on any other medium. It’s a synthesis of deeply intimate experiences and patterns out there that may or may not deserve your attention. If you’re more into serious analyses on contemporary and real-world issues, you can visit my published articles here or video essays Frame & Sentences instead.

Oh, I also love board games, spoken word poetry, and sorting out my folders.

I’m @Afutami on Twitter, Instagram, and pretty much everything else.
I also took http://afuta.me for the pun of it.

Thank you for being here!