Fridae

Built with a vision by its creator to “let our voices be heard and remain salient in the public sphere”, ALMA has further developed into a mega-scale LGBT event platform with a number of programs including the ALMA Regional Leadership Forum, the ALMA Business & Diversity Networking Reception, and the ALMA Awards Ceremony.

For the first time, Asia has a large-scale regional diversity awards event for sexual and gender minorities, recognizing the “Milestone” moments and events in the cause of LGBT movements across the region and applauding the people and corporate organizations behind them. The Awards are a key date in the diversity calendar in Asia and are widely recognized as a “must-attend” event of the year by many leaders of the LGBT community and corporate organizations with a keen interest and commitment in the region.

The 2nd Asia LGBT Milestone Awards is the region’s premiere LGBT event celebrating the emergence of a progressive Asia. The organizers chose to host the event in Bangkok rather than in its home-grown country Singapore due to unfavorable public views on homosexuality in Singapore and its “unenforced” discriminatory law.

ALMA recognises that within the movement for LGBT equality and welfare one faces constant challenges and taking the opportunity to allow community leaders from across Asia to meet and greet in person. The Regional Leadership Forum allows leaders from the region to engage in in-depth discussions and share their work and upcoming projects with potential funders from the corporate sector and individual LGBT entrepreneurs. This year, the Forum’s theme is “What You Can Do: Today’s Key Challenges to Achieving Greater Diversity at Workplace”.

The judging process is created in a way that even the organizers do not have the authority to decide on the results as it is participated by over 100 members of the judging panel coming from 11 Asian countries including Mainland China, Japan, S.Korea, Taiwan (Republic of China), Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, India, Nepal, Indonesia and Myanmar. They represent the outstanding leaders of the LGBT community including straight allies. International LGBT journalists are also invited to take part in the nomination and judging process.

The finalists include Geng Le, a former policeman who successfully lured in 30 million USD from Venture Capitalist last year; Koyuki Higashi & Hiroko Masuhara, a couple from Japan who runs an LGBT lifestyle business and shocked the country when they wedded at Tokyo’s Disneyland. Another Vietnamese couple did a similar “milestone” event last year by hosting their highly-publicized wedding on a plane. Nisha Ayub, a Malaysian transgender activist who were thrown into the prison before but won a landmark bid to overturn an Islamic anti cross-dressing law in the conservative Muslim-majority nation. All happened in the year 2014 – 2015. Other finalists include top Mandopop singer Jolin Tsai, Filipino transgender model Geena Rocero, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, etc. Finalists from the corporate category include IBM, China’s Alibaba, Thailand’s VoiceTV and HSBC.