Category: Events

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Toyota Impact Challenge – Semi-Final Pitch Night

On the 14th of August, I participated in an event, hosted by Impact Hub, where six passionate start up teams “pitch to a panel of judges for 6 months incubation.” All of their apps have to link to one of the themes of the Toyota Impact challenge:  road safety, smart cities, future of transport, and environment.

After the first session, I went to talk with a girl who is the founder of JisDer app, which could possibly solve the issue of traffic jam in Phnom Penh. Basically, the users can see if there are people going to the same place as them and connect with the driver to pick them up too. Then, the driver will receive money from the user. After she reintroduced me to her app, I asked her multiple questions, especially about user’s and driver’s safety.

One of the teams in particular that I love has developed a TosJis app. They noticed that public transportation is very popular all around the world, except Cambodia. To combat this problem, they created an app to show the route and real-time updates of each bus. In the future, they plan to implement GPS trackers on all the buses so that the users can receive “accurate arrival and departure time.” Because of their business model and feasibility, their team got selected for the 6 months incubation program with the other two teams.

 

Click on the link to read more about the other 6 teams: https://phnompenh.impacthub.net/2018/08/14/toyota-impact-challenge-semi-final-pitch-night/

 

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Girls in Science and Technology Fair

March 8 is an International Women’s Day, and it is when we “celebrate the social, economic, cultural, and political achievement of women.”  On this day, I attended an event that was organised by an organization called Cambodian Children Fund. There were so many incredible female speakers that confidently shared their accomplishments, projects, and their pride. Some girls talked about their app when they enrolled in Technovation, which is a global program that encourages girls to participate to create application to solve their country’s plight. Additionally, a few girls from Liger presented their marine conservation project. Whereas some of the Cambodian Children Fund girls talked about their robot and chemical reaction. One of my most memorable stories was when a 90 year-old lady told us that she was forbidden by her father from going to school. That was why she tried to encourage her daughter to go to school and be educated. Also, she mentioned that now she is learning how to code with the help from the software team. Listening to all of these amazing presentations, varied from projects to achievement, made me think of how many women suffer from violent, lacks of equality and equity, racism, and ignorance. Yes, we are celebrating their accomplishments, but we should not ignore the pain that they have to go through and those who are working tirelessly to combat the problems that women face in their daily life.

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One Billion Rising

On 11th of February, I attended an event called “One Billion Rising” at Chenla Theater. One Billion Rising is a global campaign that aims to end violence against women. According to World Health Organization, 1 in 3 women has experienced violence and abuse in their life, and it is not a surprise that Cambodian women are still suffered from exploitation and discrimination: rape and domestic violence.

It was my honor to participate in this gathering and to know that this campaign exists in Cambodia. At the event, I saw two performances; one of them is about an injured woman that got raped by her partner, and the other one is about an abused woman that feared to talk about her experience and seek help. At the end, we danced to the song named “Break the Chain.” It was my first time to dance in front of strangers, but it was worth it because I want to show that we support this movement and that we have to collaborate to “break the chain” that constrains us, women.

Link to a recap of Cambodian One Billion Rising 2018:   https://www.facebook.com/447568601969682/videos/1676937285699468/

 

 

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Woman Needs Rich Man

“You should marry a rich guy.” This is what older generation across Cambodia say to girls. Fall in love with a wealthy guy so that your life is complete. People prioritize money over actual love because with money, you can do anything and you will be happy. This is what many Cambodians believe in.

On the 8th of December, 2017, I attended an event related to my current Exploration, which is “Gender Equity.” It was actually a play called “I am a daughter,”  and it will be shown to government schools both in Phnom Penh and provinces. Due to limited fund, they only have two government high school students as actor and actress. There is a boy that played as a grand mother, a guy that the main character was being forced to married to, and Soya (main character’s best friend – a girl.) On the other hand, the girl is the main character and also Soya’s husband.

At the beginning of the play, the grandmother is urging the main character to quit studying to marry this wealthy man. However, she refuses because education is more important to her than marriage. So, her grand mother tries to come up with many benefits of marrying this man. Moreover, she tells her to look at Soya (best friend) as a role model because Soya married at an early age and now has a baby and a delightful life.

With the pressure from her family, she talks with the guy that she supposes to marry to to let him know about her intention before the marriage. The guy understands and let her finishes high school and college. While she is receiving high education, her best friend regrets her decision of marrying because her husband abused her. At the end, she marries the rich guy and has a kid.

Personally, I think this play really reflects the idea of wanting rich man and why we should stop believing it. This play can end at when the main character finishes her study and have a job without marrying; however, this is a good example of how to create change by preserving culture. In Cambodian culture, woman needs to marry someone. Nevertheless, she should marry a man because of love instead of money.

Soya and her husband

 

 

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Chase Your Dream

On the 12th of September, I attended an event at Impact Hub, where inspirational speakers have the opportunity to share their dreams. The theme of this event is “Youth with Impact.” So, there were five talented speakers such as: independent filmmaker and founder of PEACE Films, public relation director of Humanity Helping Hands, an author of “A Proper Woman,” SmallWorld SmallBand vocalist, and a funding artistic director. My most favorite speech was a gay rights activist, who is promoting traditional Khmer dance. My biggest takeaway from this event was that you have to follow your dream, no matter how complicated it is going to be because through perseverance and determination, your dream may come true. In additional, sometimes, you have to break the mold.
 
gay rights activist 
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Experience in Organic Farm

As part of “To Spray or not to Spray” Exploration, we visited an organic farm in Kratie province to understand more about organic farming and pesticides. There are so many ways to create organic pesticides. One of the ways is to use seeds and plants to repel pests and it is very effective due to their poison, strong smell, spiciness, and bitterness. Another way is to use yeast as the main ingredient, which is called EM (effective micro-organism.) Personally, when I first stepped on the farm that was full with bananas, carrots, and leafy vegetables, I felt like I was in a real nature that did not contaminated with any chemical. I got opportunities to harvest carrots and formed organic pesticides. Also, on the way back, we stopped at organic pepper farm and we got chance to interviewed the owner’s perspective on organic farming. After this special experience, I really want to practice organic farming both in Liger and at my home.

  • Making EM
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The Battle Between Liger and EYC

A few weeks after returning from our summer break, Liger held a football competition between Liger and EYC (Empowering Youth in Cambodia.)  EYC came out to our campus with three different teams which were girls, boys, and junior boy team. Most of our Liger students from both cohorts came along to cheer our players with their screams and smiles. I was one of players too and I felt confident that this was going to be the first girl’s team victory. Fortunately, through perseverance and determination, my team won with a score of 5 – 0, the Liger boy’s team won by 12 goals, and our Junior boys won by one point. 

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Investors

I am currently working on developing ImEx application. Basically, my team started this app two years ago and now we still learning how to code. So, last weekends we heard that there will be an event at Emerald Hub where investors come to share their experience and if our business is good, they will invest in our business. There were two types of investors at there: ANGEL INVESTORS and VENTURE CAPITALISTS (VC). 

Angel Investors – people who look for promising start-up companies in their early stages (have products, but not yet make profit)

Venture Capitalists (VC) – people and companies who invest large amounts in other companies that are in a later stage (already have revenue, profit)

At first, we were not suppose to present our idea to them directly. Instead, we had to stay with one investor and tried to get as many feedback as possible to improve our presentation. When we presented our idea to him, he said that our idea will not work. The reason was because it is too big. So, he recommended us to focus on small area first and then expand it. However, he encouraged us to learn how business work first because we have only a little experience in this thing.

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Kingdom of WOW!!

This was an event where Cambodian children came and show off their talent. I was not really part of the committee, but I volunteered to help to run this event. Many people came to see what our Khmer children got including foreigners, news people, NGOs, international schools, etc. Our performers were very talented. Here are the following performance: singing, Khmer dance, hip hop, magic tricks, Khmer fighting, and music. At the end, our judges announced the winner in each category and the performer that audience like the most.
 
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Science and Engineering and Maker Faire

Science and Engineering Festival was an event where I and my friends went to share something about STEM. So, our school had two booths. Liger students shared about robots, the Wildlife and Economy books, programming, music, and art. I went to there to present about drone and shared our Wildlife and Economy books. Part of that I got opportunity to go to see other booths and learned more about it. One project that made me very curious about it was collecting insect of all kind in Cambodia and then identify it. By this event, we got chance to network with other people that were interested in science, including the new US Ambassador!

In that day, we also joined that Maker Faire. It was where makers of all kinds could share and learn from other’s useful products. Six Liger students got to the semi-final including me and two Liger students won second place and third place!