The Financial Services Authority (OJK) held dialogue and iftar gathering with bloggers in Jakarta, on Sunday (Jun. 18). Focusing on the theme of "It's Time to Get Closer to Islamic Finance," the event was attended by OJK Communication and International Department Head Triyono, OJK Islamic Non-Bank Financial Industry Director Moch Muchlasin, OJK Islamic Banking Product Development and Education Deputy Director Setiawan Budi Utomo, OJK Islamic Capital Market Deputy Director Muhammad Touriq, Kompasiana COO Iskandar Zulkarnaen, and scores of blogger who have joined the citizen media.

On that occasion, Triyono opened the event by briefly describing about the OJK, from the Authority's presence in a number of social media channels to introducing OJK TV's English program. He revealed how enormous the power that social media has today and expected the bloggers to disseminate information about the OJK to the general public.

"Now the OJK has been active in social media. The public can find out a lot of information about us from our social media accounts," Triyono said.

Following the event's opening, Iskandar Zulkarnaen, the moderator, took over the stage and started a talk show that ran in three sessions.  Moch Muchlasin, Setiawan Budi, and Muhammad Touriq, took turns presenting their materials about Islamic Finance. All participants listened intently to them. A question-and-answer session took place after their presentations.

Setiawan Budi recommended Islamic Finance to be part of people's daily lives. "Ideally, Islamic Finance should become a part of our lifestyle. Islamic Banking certainly will bring more blessings to one's life," he explained on the sidelines of the dialogue.

The event became even more exciting when the bloggers performed flash blogging—quick blog writing. For this task, the competition committee gave participants a two-hour deadline. They competed for producing interesting articles about the event and Islamic Finance. The buoyant atmosphere continued when stand-up comedian Panca Atis perfomed onstage and repeatedly made all participants burst out laughing.

Live blogging competition winners with OJK officials and Kompasiana COO.

At the end of the session, the competition committee announced winners for each category. Three winners were named for live tweet and Instagram categories, respectively, and 10 winners were selected for the live blogging category. Each winner received a great prize from the committee. The event was concluded with a group photograph session.