Move_Make_Create_

Within all levels of the Thai education system, there is a lack of new media, modern content creation, programming, and interactive tech training and exposure. Having engaged slum charities and Thailand's most prestigious university, Chulalongkorn University, I have found that at all levels there is a lack of focus on preparing students with skills, ideas, and creative flows for modern content, art, and media creation. 

Thus, I launched a pilot program working with several charity schools in Bangkok's largest slum that have a mixture of poor Thai and refugees, and migrant worker children. The schools lack art teachers as well as tech teachers, so I created a mobile pop-up solution to offer new creative tech and modern media experiences to learners through digital art courses. 

My main focus now is to continue to develop the pop-up mobile kit and develop some structured "must-learn" new media skills in a set course that can be deployed in various schools in the country and beyond. Launching the pilot led me to see how huge the gap is in education access in this field and also made me see that for young learners these skills are vital to remaining competitive in their futures.  

Moreover, I work with a Chinese friend to launch summer camps in China to engage the children of migrant workers who have left their children behind in the villages. The goal would be to develop a proven system that teaches vital skills to let students continue creating long after the classes and deliver this to Thailand and China in the future in these sessions with students in rural villages. In China, these kids are called "left-behind children" and my experiences have shown me how in reality these children, both in Thailand and China, are really being left behind in many ways.

Having now established my name and having art gallery representation and doing several large public events with Chulalongkorn, I have made contact with many young Thai art students. Many of the programs they are taking lack new media, and Chulalongkorn doesn't have any new media majors, just a recently launched "digital arts hub" which I have been working with to develop public projects. Thus, for this program, I will also be tapping into the local Thai artist and having them be part of developing and deploying the classes. In this way, both the slum children and the university-aged Thais will gain new skills and be connecting in a new creative way as many of the projects will be collaborative. I dream that they can actually become full-time hired teachers that I offer employment to through this program.

As I have been doing large public-facing events now in Bangkok for several years, I am now able to monetize interactive pop-ups in various ways for events which are one way I seek to fund the larger program. Meanwhile, once the classes and program become more realized, I will be able to market the course and sell it to upper-class Thais and the large expat community here as a way to fund the courses for underprivileged students. 

I engaged three charity schools in Bangkok's largest slum to understand their current situation, budget issues, and overall pain points in delivering education to students. In all, I saw a lack of art, design, and tech courses or teachers to deliver any related courses. 

I have also engaged with Chulalongkorn's profs and students to understand what the university currently lacks and understand why.

Both communities and engagements showed me a great lack of foundation for this kind of learning in Bangkok unless you are wealthy and can pay for expensive small private courses with specialist teachers. 

Yet, I saw the enthusiasm and wanting to develop more courses, more learning, and spread access to such learning. Thus, since the spaces and places already exist at the schools, the idea of delivering pop-up solutions that can fill in the cracks of the current system arose. 

1. Introduce students (at all levels) to open-source resources for learning new creative skills in new media. 

2. Offer current trends and ideas related to new media both artistically and commercially.

2. Create projects and sessions that offer open-ended creative projects with students working in small groups. 

4. Have a final project and some public showcase of works from students (at all levels)

5. Encourage kids to keep creating and developing skills. Offer online resources for further learning.

6. Motivated and curious students will continue to play, explore and create new skills and ideas from sessions and get on the current wave of new media content. 

7. By getting tuned in with basic skills and knowledge, continue to utilize such skills and thinking for future jobs or creative projects. Also, be more flexible and adaptable to tech-related content and more prepared for jumping into jobs and careers that are related to this up-and-coming field.

8. Promote older college-age kids to learn skills they have not had to access yet in their undergraduate learning and hopefully be able to offer them community leadership, community event planning, and teacher roles in the future. Be part of creating a foundation and community for new media in Thailand. 

level 1

While it is quite logical to think that some experiences and engagements are better than none, I haven't gotten to the point of thinking about how I would prove this, as I am still in the development of what the program should look like.

Currently, the community is not offering the students any resources, thus, it's quite logical to think, yes, this program and learning will be great to offer since they have no art/tech courses now. But I know it needs to be stronger evidence and thus I think this program is a great fit to boost my ability to market and sell the program. 

I guess it is counting the number of students I can access and thinking about the massive number of students that currently lack access. 

For the pilot, I was able to engage around 100 kids at different times from the different small charity schools. There are thousands of more children at all levels of schools in Bangkok and beyond that lack access to this kind of learning so one major goal would be able to scale and think about growing the number of schools and community organizations I can enter. 

As far as skill learning, I guess I evaluate this more from my background in digital arts from college. Where you are evaluating, can the student use the technology, and has the student added their touch or some creative element to their work with the technology. The results of what they create and their ability to use the technology or skill we learned in class are currently my way of evaluating if they are gaining new skills. 

Pop-up, mobile new media creative learning program to fill in the cracks of the current education system in Thailand and China.

1. What would be a method to demonstrate the learning benefits of this kind of creative tech learning in some practical way that I can achieve?

2. When it comes to proving the worth of the program how should I approach quantity vs quality in marketing my product? (i.e. impact by the number of students versus how important this kind of learning is for the future.)

3. What is the best way to show that this program and kind of learning is vital to get funding from Western/Industrialized countries for grants? (Currently, finding funding in Thailand has been nearly impossible while enthusiasm from universities, galleries, and companies is high, there is a lack of funding.)

I would hope to leave this program with the guidance I need to take my project to the next level and hope to use the time to be able to gather the evidence and proof I need. Armed with this or at least the plan to get this, I will be poised and ready to pitch and find larger funding to really launch this into a practical, ongoing solution. (With the evidence used to get more funding and start the ongoing sessions, hopefully, eventually, make the government connection I ultimately need.)