Wan Saiful Wan Jan is a regular commentator on Malaysian and ASEAN affairs. He has an English column in Malaysia’s leading English daily The Star, as well as a Chinese column in Malaysia’s most widely circulated Chinese newspaper Sin Chew. His opinion is quoted by various media, including the BBC, Reuters, International Herald Tribune, Al-Jazeera and The Economist. He also frequently appears in interviews in Malaysian radio as well as Malaysian and international TV channels such as Bloomberg, Channel News Asia and CCTV.
He is currently chief executive of the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (www.ideas.org.my), a not-for-profit organisation that he co-founded in 2010, and Visiting Senior Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) Singapore. Wan Saiful is also Chairman of the Istanbul Network for Liberty (www.istanbulnetwork.org), an international foundation established in 2011 to explore and promote the principles and values of a free society in the Muslim world. He is also a Board member of the Malaysian International Chamber of Commerce and Industry (www.micci.com), Advisor to the Malaysia China Chamber of Commerce (www.mccc.my).
Wan Saiful is actively involved in community activities. In 2014 he helped set up IDEAS Academy, which is a charity secondary-level learning centre for refugees in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Prior to that, in 2012 he set up another charity project, the IDEAS Autism Centre to provide education, care and therapy for autistic children from urban poor households in Kuala Lumpur.