Dr. Mustafa Izzuddin

Dr. Mustafa Izzuddin is Associate Professor and Executive Director of the Nehginpao Kipgen Center for Southeast Asian Studies, which is the first think-tank in India dedicated to the study of Southeast Asia. Dr Mustafa is concurrently Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The SidMus Group, which is a conglomerative portfolio of socially innovative ventures and interests in medical tourism, educational development, water filtration, and nutritional security in Southeast Asia and South Asia. Dr Mustafa also holds and has held adjunct and visiting teaching and research fellowships in Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, China, Morocco, the UK, the US, and Singapore, namely the National University of Singapore’s NUS College and Residential College 4.

For close to a decade, Dr Mustafa has been playing a leadership role as an interlocutor in forging and sustaining regional and global partnerships and international collaborations between universities, institutions, and non-governmental organizations. He also serves as a Lead Senior International Affairs Analyst with Solaris Strategies Singapore consultancy and is recognized as an interfaith champion in Southeast Asia by encouraging and establishing a couple of centers for interfaith dialogue and intercultural engagement in the region. He was also appointed as the first Singaporean to serve as an external (international) expert in civilizational dialogue for the Center of Civilizational Dialogue at the Islamic World Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ICESCO), which is an international organization that comes under the aegis of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). On his own initiative and based on his penchant for interfaith work and educational development, Dr Mustafa is currently leading a team, through the SidMus Group, to establish the first-of-its-kind DIA (Dialogue in Action) digital platform in Southeast Asia. Focusing on youths, the key idea is to leverage on digital technology to enhance dialogue among cultures, faiths, and civilizations in Southeast Asia by creating an interconnected regional network of digital dialogues among universities and non-governmental organizations.

A Fulbright Scholar and a recognized specialist of Southeast Asian affairs for the past 15 years, Dr Mustafa received his PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) after successfully completing his doctoral dissertation on a neoclassical realist interpretation of Malaysia-China relations and passing it without any corrections. He has pioneered work on neoclassical realism in Southeast Asia and has helped encourage more research to be conducted on small states and middle powers in Southeast Asia, diasporic studies, and internationalization of interfaith dialogue. He also analyses multifaceted relations between the regions of South Asia and Southeast Asia, and Central Asia and Southeast Asia.

Dr Mustafa has written more than 200 articles and commentaries, supervised, and mentored over 100 youths and students, and has spoken at more than 150 seminars and conferences. He has briefed and provided consultancy services to over 50 institutions and organizations, including universities in South and Southeast Asia, government ministries and statutory boards, non-governmental organizations chiefly in the social service sector, private sector companies, places of worship such as mosques, and the Diplomatic Corps. He serves on a dozen international advisory or editorial boards of academic journals of repute. As a known political pundit on international affairs, and in particular, the region of Southeast Asia, he has been interviewed and quoted in more than 200 media outlets across the world. Dr Mustafa is an award-winning educator, having taught more than 20 university courses and provided educational leadership in curriculum development in the fields of culture and international relations. He is proficient in several languages spoken in the countries of Southeast Asia and South Asia.

On the community service front, Dr Mustafa has served for more than 25 years as a volunteer-leader with the Malay/Muslim community and the wider society. He also serves or has served on ad-hoc national committees and several management boards, including at Yayasan Mendaki, Muslim Kidney Action Association (MKAC), the Malay Youth Literary Association (4PM), the National Council of Social Service (NCSS), Eunos (Telok Kurau) Primary School, and in relation to the Singapore Dawoodi Bohras, garnering a wealth of leadership experience in public relations, business management, and raising funds. He is also the Founding President of the London Goodenough College Alumni Association of Singapore, through which he had an audience with Her Majesty the late-Queen Elizabeth II. During the Covid-19 pandemic period, Dr Mustafa singlehandedly raised close to half a million dollars to help the underprivileged in Singapore society, not through compulsion, but by way of compassion. Since 2020, he has been inducted as a member into the Inter-Religious Organization Singapore and serves as advisor to the National Youth Achievement Award Gold Award Holders’ Alumni of Singapore.

Dr Mustafa has received a number of local, regional and international awards for his voluntary leadership and community service, including the Junior Chamber International (JCI)’s Ten Outstanding Young Persons of the World 2019. He was selected to be Singapore’s Youth Representative to the United Nations General Assembly in New York in 2003. A modest philanthropist, Dr Mustafa established a charitable foundation bearing his name, and which has disbursed grants and funds to set up bursaries and student prizes in universities based in South Asia and Southeast Asia, in the hope of inspiring graduating students to achieve academic excellence, give back to society, be values-driven, and embrace global citizenship.