Contributing Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs) by Self-design Competitio

Have you ever heard about Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs)? These are enacted by United Nation and it will have pursed during 2015 to 2030 by Government, International Organizations, Non-governmental Organizations, civil society and so on. Last summer, our team went to Thailand to contribute SDGs at the student level. Name of our project is ‘Establishing coding education platform in Thailand’. Actually, this has not come out suddenly. Now, the government of Thailand accomplished ‘Thailand 4.0’ policy which highlights the importance of ICT. As we know, ownership is one of the considerable factor when planning the project. So, in this flow, our team planned to make coding education application. This application is helpful to the beginners. Through this application, people can get sense about how computer works. They can easily understand algorithm of the computer. This is important to learn basic knowledge of c-language. For the sustainable development in Thailand, we submitted this idea to selfdesign competition. Thankfully we were selected and it was an unforgettable moment.
To prepare our project, we got advises from the experts who worked in IT field. One of our team members participated in science exposition to get some insights. Overall literature review was of course proceeded to find out which information is needed for our project. Through this, our team listed questions to ask when visiting the institutions. In total, we contacted three institutions and two universities before leaving Korea. The period of our project was from June 20 to July 5. Our team visited three cities. Bangkok, Phuket and Chiang Mai. These cities are designated as smart-city by government of Thailand. Therefore, our team first expected that ICT infrastructure would be relatively well settled. However, it wasn’t. First
city we visited was Bangkok. There, we had a meeting with Kasembundit university, UTCC, and TICA. When we visited Kasembundit university, we did campus tour and observed IT department course to estimate the experience and level. After that, we had a meeting with a professor of computer engineering to discuss about our application. He recommended us to make instructions and add narration. Also, we met the dean of IT department of UTCC (University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce). Unexpectedly he greeted us and our project. He said that nowadays Thailand recognized the importance of IT education. However, even the students who study computer are unfamiliar with coding. So, he offered us to develop it in IDE center in UTCC with the support of a professor and enough budgets. Last institution in Bangkok was TICA (Thailand International Cooperation) of Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We met diplomat to talk about South-South cooperation and efficiency of IT project in the field. Second city was Phuket. Actually in Phuket, we could not het around easily due to the traffic problem. So we solely went to ACF (Asia center foundation), the institution that cares children in tough situation. It is a non-governmental organization and they welcomed us. We tested the level of application in children. At first it seemed like children felt difficulties, but soon they adapted to it. From ACF we
got insight about preparing Thailand translation. In last city, Chiang Mai, we did survey at Chiang Mai university. Interestingly, many students responded positively about learning coding through application. The problem we found from survey was the tough environment. There was no place to teach coding. In that case our application which has high availability can be a solution. After that, we visited DEPA (Digital Economy Partnership Agency) who was in charge of the Thailand 4.0 policy. We had 2 hours’ conversation with chair of DEPA in Chiang Mai, two coding experts, and two staffs. They really prudently looked through it. The problem was that baud of Arduino we use did not match with theirs. However, they said our project can bring good impact. So we were offered to cooperate with them, providing budget. After we came back to Korea, based on feedbacks we got, we finished developing the application.

I couldn’t forget the time in Thailand. Obviously it is not a common opportunity to implement and move to the project what I planned. Although I never heard about IT sector, through this I experienced new field. Also, the time I talked with the diplomat of Thailand had stimulated me to become a acknowledgeable person. At the same time, hearing South-South cooperation project was interesting for me. In the term of career, this self-designed competition was really helpful. Beside, as the student who studies international development cooperation, contributing to SDGs is a huge experience. I really appreciate our university for the chance, since it brought me a new experience and I got motivation from it.