Move_Make_Create_

A pop-up new media mobile kit/team that offers new and ongoing experiential tech/new media learning to underserved communities in Thailand.

On my first first visit to a school in Bangkok's largest slum, I asked the leader, "So, who is your current art teacher?" She flatly responded: " We don't have one. Our old teacher died a few years ago and we have no budget to hire anyone and no one has volunteered like her." 

I had found myself visiting various charity schools and then engaging Bangkok's top university, and found that at all levels of society there was a lack of access to new media learning and creative tech learning. The exciting thing was that everyone around me that I was engaging in the government, education and charity sector were excited to engage, plan and start taking new actions together.

Move_Make_Create_ formulated with the mission to offer pop-up new media experiences while also serving a conduit between community resources and communities that continually lack access to them for various access reasons. 

Backed up by research from UN that shows Bangkok slum communities are stuck in cycles of poverty with one underlying issue being a lack of access to tech/creative education.

The main facets of Move_Make_Create_ are:

1. Holding ongoing creative tech workshops for disadvantaged communities or communities that are lacking people who can teach new media skills.

2. Connecting institutions and their offerings to communities that lack access and help to fund and facilitation new participation or actions to give new access/experiences for disadvantaged communities. 

UN research notes that slum communities in developing Asia stay in cycles of poverty, with one reason stated being the lack of access to educational resources that can offer upwards trajectories to break cycles of poverty. Creative new media skills and creative tech learning is vital for business and competitiveness in the modern world, MMC firmly believe that is critical that we focus on the learners and the countries who currently lack access to these advance resources and learning to even the global capitalist playing field so that all people, and not just rich people or those in rich countries have access to the tools and learning we need to survive in the digital age. 

I have found that there is a lack of access to creative and explorative new media and creative tech learning within Bangkok. I found that this affects people from the bottom to the top of the society. After making a connection with Chulalongkorn University's new media group Faamai, where I have held public projects at their new dome, I learned about the schools lack of new media and creative tech learning as well. Meanwhile, I saw how at any schools and students lacked access to technology, programs and teachers that could teach anything about new media and creative tech. 

By partnering with businesses, NGOs, Universities, and Cultural Institues, MMC strives to help be conduit and work with the resources and connect them even further and taking more meaningful actions as this a nation-wide issue. 

Through networking and growing with Chulalongkorn and various charities and the largest art and design institutes in Bangkok, there has been a flash of light bulbs going off and new activities envisioned. With Covid haunting us for the last two year, Thailand is just getting people vaccinated now, with my second jab coming next week, I am excited with continueing the already planned ongoing engagement with the chairty schools while new platforms are emerging post Covid. With Chula and TTB Bank, Move_Make_Create_(MMC) will be hosting its first large scale workshop that will be introducing projects, skills and actions for 100 local Thai teachers to bring back their students to conduct social media creative new media actions. 

My original project was started by independent actions based on my own surveys of local communities and the complete lack of resources. Chula saw my actions and found that this kind of pop-up solution could be worthwhile and thus we started to plan and engage with each other to think about taking larger actions in society. 

MMC works to target schools that lack current new media and tech education resources, and will continue to build the network of schools and the institutions that want to work with them. 

In Bangkok and throughout Thailand, students from low-income families lacking basic access to tech/new media education needed in 2021. 

MMC works as it fills in the cracks of the current system that does offer basic education to many children. By saving costs on space and working with institutions that have resources, MMC aims to be able to offer pop-up solutions that require nothing other than space and students with its own media kit and planned curriculum and teachers.  

Tyler Hallett

MMC "works" because it is working to fill in the gaps that it sees in the society at all levels. By working to network and utilize the various resources, MMC can offer both experiences and chances for better connections between groups that have historically not been connected in Bangkok. 

Looking at the schools MMC engages, the goal will be continue growing the the community of schools that have the space and place for workshops, but now lack tech, programs and teachers who can lead courses. As many around Bangkok seem to be lacking the resources, with more funding and support, the program could become part of a large scale, open source and nimble solution to fill in various gaps at various levels. 

Seeing the chances to lead large workshops and develop large social media projects, I see how MMC is part of the push to think nimble, creative and current and grow with Chulalongkorn's FaaMai young new media group. 

After engaging with Thailand Creative & Design Center (TCDC) I found their great interest to be more connected to disadvantaged communities back lacked the resources to be able to conduct such out reach or planning such events due to their own budget limitations. I saw MMC can serve to help make those connections and get more learners accessing resrouces that have been mostly used by the middle-upper class. 

I have held ongoing classroom activities within two slum charities to understand the students and learn more about the best way to engage the community. 

I have held various public events and testing softwares and learning how to engage the community with tech and ideate ways in which to create and engage in community/group settings. This has been done at Chula's large public dome for a two-night public engagement where I created and projected with around 200 people. Meanwhile, at Awakening Bangkok, run by Time Out Magazine, I was able to engage over 50,000 people with new software creations during the week-long festival.

Meanwhile, I have held meetings with Thailand Creative Design Center (TCDC), Chulalongkorn and other cultural institutes about the actions and events we envision when things open up in the next month or so. 

I am working to develop my mobile unit and currently have 4 computers with 2 two short-throw projectors, which are vital for small pop-up classrooms. I also use 4 HD webcams for introducing various interactive and video/photo based projects. 

I program custom applications for workshops in Max/MSP/Jitter, Processing, Open Processing and Sketch. Also use free online versions of famous software to teach some basic photoshop/graphic design skills. 

My working theory is to utilize as much open source technology as possible while also being able to offer access to technology they have not been engaging before. 

My goal and dream to be able to teach coding and AR/VR like I want would require a classroom set of 15 labtops and 15 phones that will become the core part of the mobile unit along with the projectors and cameras to offer pop-up workshops in any place. 

The possibility to not only create a pop-up unit to serve children in underserved communities is the start to perhaps having multiple units in multiple parts of Thailand. 

Meanwhile, with more connections to institutions like TTB Bank and Chulalongkorn University interested to have workshops with local Thai teachers to offer creative projects and lessons that are accessible, the long-term goals of MMC is to be part of creating and building a community of new media creative output at different levels of society while also working to connect and think of ways that the technology can create new engagements and actions between institutions and communities that have historically lacked access to resources. 

I have just had a call with the leader of Sisters of Code from Cambodia and learned about their formalized program and connection with the local Cambodian government, and what the pros and cons of that engagement are. I think for MMC it will be good to explore connections with private businesses, the government, and universities in order to be able to keep the mission of being able to target and service populations that are currently being underserved.

Ultimately, with the pop-up unit in place and with COVID lifting, I will be able to follow in the same footsteps at Sisters of Code and establish a formalized and scalable curriculum, but  MMC will have a diversified range of tech and projects as I will be using an "art class" approach for each session. 

School's lacking access to new media learning. Part of MMC's goal in 2022 will be surveying more schools and growing the network of schools that can be served in Bangkok.

Universities interactive media and coding art courses.

Teachers lacking experience in planning new media projects and using tech for art.

Filling in the cracks of the current education system where the government states that tech-literacy education is vital, but currently unable to deliver it to many students across the country and not training teachers to have new media creative skills. 

As MMC's actions are various, the measured impact will be too, but I will be looking at:

1. How many schools are being served (how many children in the schools.

2. How many teachers have been engaged and community new media  projects launched in the workshops

3. How many set "courses" I have created to build the curriculum in order to standardize the "Into to New Media Workshops." Looking at Sisters of Code, I see they have 18 week set course, so I will be looking to build up my activities. So far I have created applications and plans for about 6 classes.  

4. How many workshops I will be able to have with students at Chula or other university that are currently lacking new media learning. 

Next year's biggest goals will be getting back to normal classes in the current established 3 NGO's MMC works within. Then throughout the year in 2022, I will be working to establish a network of more schools with the hopes of being able to serve 10 schools by the end of 2022.

Within 2022, I will have my first large scale teacher workshop with 100 teachers attendin.g at TTP headquarters where community new media projects will be introduced. Based on what is learned and how that experience goes, I hope that this action will expand into more engagements and growing engagements in other parts of the country too. 

If funding is able to provide the first dream kit in 2022, and MMC is able to get more attention from local government and business, in three years I hope to be able to launch two more kits. One in the North and South of Thailand (Hat Yai and Chaing Mai) as I have connections and have worked within universities in both places. 

In five years, I dream that MMC will have created a network and community where students and teachers from across the country are being served. And with a larger network in place, think about the cool and exciting art showing and community engagements that could be planned for large-scale projects, competitions and collaborations where MMC can move into facilitating and organizing the new media art community that it has help to grow and shape. 

Main barrier is financial as I have been bootstrapping the pop-up learning kit myself and using that kit to do paid events for fashion shows and bar openings etc. to pay for my actions.

Ultimately, once the main "dream" kit is assembled, then the final courses can be created based on that kit. Once that cost is out of the way, at some point, I would want to see how I could finance my actions to be able to work on this full-time and not some side project like it is now with my editing startup being my source of income. 

Then, if I am able to do this, grow my schools I am servicing and solidify my courses, this is where I envision being able to get larger funding from the government and businesses and universities to be able to launch the other kits and hire new team members to grow and expand the people being served by MMC.

As stated, MMC is the expansion of the project Minneapolis Art on Wheels. 

The motivation to start this program came after visiting several charity schools in Bangkok's largest slums where I saw many students not having any access to learning any new media or tech learning. This was personally very sad for me as I have always loved tech and art since I was very young and so the lack of access and my privilege I had in the USA made me need to take action to give back to my chosen home of Thailand.

After starting classes, it was the interest of Chulalongkorn who also showed the current lack of learning in new media at this level too showed me that there needs to be more action in getting the society thinking and creating more with new media tools. 

2 -- Me and my Thai-Tawainese boyfriend who is a choral instructor for the Thai National Youth Choir who has great experience in planning cultural events.

Then within every partnership and institution we engage with there are many large teams and several people we engage with regularly at each place. 

I went to school for time and interactivity where I then was part of team who got a large grant to start Minneapolis Art on Wheels. After graduating, I worked full-time on Minneapolis art on Wheels where I was able to get great experience in planning interactive tech experiences with the public. 

Meanwhile, my boyfriend helps me to localize content for Thai learners and people and also helps me to ensure all content and actions are workable within a Thai framework. He has experience in hosting and planning events too so he is helpful in running special pop-up events/workshops.

Meanwhile, with ongoing connections to slum charities, cultural institutes  and Chulalongkorn university, MMC is striving to help create new connections and projects between groups that have not been historically in contact or working together. 

I have started Minneapolis Art on Wheels where we worked on wheeled mobile units and later backpack units.

Selected Work | Move_ Make_ Create_ (tylerjamesbangkok.com)

I have also been the founder of a content company in Shenzhen China, where I have been part of working to have the entire business running and working within WeChat, to provide instant feedback and connections for our clients. 

Move_ Make_ Create_ works with and has planned/hosted events with various groups:

-Paintbrush Foundation (Slum charity Classes) 

-Mercy Centre (Slum Charity Classes) 

-Chulalongkorn University (Public community events and student workshops)

-FaaMai (Chulalongkorn University’s New Media Hub)

-TCDC (Thailand Creative & Design Center) (Interactive Projection Art Events)

-BACC (Bangkok Arts and Culture Center) (Interactive Projection Art Events)

-TTP (Thanachart Bank) (Workshop funder and organizer)

- Bangkok Community Help Foundation (Slum Charity Classes)

I am in dire need of guidance and network here in SE Asia. While I have done pretty good on my own, I feel like if I am going to take this to the next level which I wish to do, I will need to learn more and gain more insight into how to make this idea into a something that can run long-term. I am greatly interested in the learning modules and the feedback I will be able to get within those experiences, and the mentorship that comes with the experience. I appreciate that I will have access to content and strategist from MIT and Octava to help me take bigger and better steps here and I am happy to have a partner that will have knowledge and networks within SE Asia already. Since one of my biggest challenges will be to get formal funding and recognition from a large company or the government, I need help in taking the right steps to get to that level to be ready to start asking bigger players for more money.

Based on my decade in SE Asia, with the support and being part of the SOLVE with MIT and Octava will be greatly helpful in letting larger institutions or companies to support my project. 

While I think I could run MMC in a small scale and service a nice list of schools in my area and in the slums in Bangkok without large funding, with greater funding and the right connections, I want to be part of pushing new media learning and new media creations at a larger scale and thus need help in figuring out the best way to make those connections and how to get people to want to invest or use some of their CSR budget on me.