CYCU IT Volunteers Move Forward Toward Thailand 4.0

By Tsao Sung-Ching of Economic Daily News, 2017-08-22 18:24

CYCU “Thai Team” Sprout Project in Khon Kaen City, Thailand Provided by CYCU

CYCU Thai Team’s sprout project has been implemented in Khon Kaen City, Thailand for five years, which made the IT seeds sprout locally. Khon Kaen City is located on the heartland of East North Side of Thailand, and identified as one of the focus cities together with the other cities including Chiang Mai, Changwat Songkhla, Nakhon and Changwat Chon Buri under the Economic and Social Plan of the United Nations.

Khon Kaen City primarily engaged in production and processing of agricultural products at the very beginning. The local people are all simple and honest. In the most recent years, more and more factories invested by foreigners have been immigrating and, therefore, provided many employment opportunities for the local people. The real property price has been increasing year by year locally. The penetration rate of smart phones is high, and e-commerce makes many convenient services available to the local people too. Thailand 4.0 expects to drive the industrial upgrading based on the information and communication industry. President of College of Asian Scholar (CAS) appreciated the CYCU team for its assistance in the IT education in the past five years.

In the middle of August this year, a total of 11 students from CYCU Department of Information Management, including Hsieh Sung-Han, Kuo Tien-Chia, Hsieh Ya-Yuan, Tsasi Yu-Lin, Tseng Hsin, Wang Tzu-Yuan, Wu Hsin-Ting, Chen Fan-Yi, Yang Chung-Han, Lan Wen-Tsen and Shen Yu-Wei, headed for the APEC Digital Opportunity Center (ADOC) – CAS in Khon Kaen City to engage in the Service-Learning together with the other 8 school students.  Director of the CYCU Office of Information Technology, Professor Liu Shih-Hao, and Director of the Project Section of the Office of Research and Development, Associate Professor Liao Hsiu-Li, instructed the local teachers and students about the development of APP, IoT sensor, AR and Chinese education. As the ability to operate computer and speak Chinese can guarantee the local employment opportunities, the local teachers and students are very interested in learning those skills.

CYCU Thai Team received the subsidy from CYCU Excellence Project, Secretariat of TDOC (Taiwan Digital Opportunity Center) and ASUS Foundation and completed the IT volunteer service persisting for 13 days accordingly. The blue tooth Arduino remote control car & Arduino autonomous mobile courses were favored by the local teachers and students most.

Though AR courses were more complicated and difficult, after the trainers provided detailed interpretation and assistance, the trainees completed their works successfully at last. All of them were exciting to watch the 3-D image of Pikachu and Charizard, and shared their works with their friends and family members on FB with pleasure. We found that some students have taken the courses for 4 years consecutively, who not only practiced what they learned in their graduation work but also processed cases about development of apps from enterprises independently after class. The students think that the courses help their studies and work a lot.

This year, multiple schools’ principals and founders receive the CYCU team personally. When the team engaged in the education in Kumpawapi College, the local teachers showed that they were all happy to see the CYCU team engaged in services, as it was the first foreign volunteer group providing services locally. Th teachers and students of Glasay Pathana posted the photos showing that the CYCU team was providing services in 2015 on the bulletin in classroom and looked forward to the next visit paid by the CYCU’s team to them.

The founder of CAS, Prof. Dr. Krasae Chanawongse, also the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Thailand, specially took time in meeting the CYCU team and sharing the importance of life experience and leadership with the students. In order to thank the CYCU team for its contribution in the past five years, he even conferred the certificate to honor the students at the anniversary of CAS, hoping that the local teachers could learn more from Taiwan by exchanging experience with the students from Taiwan to speed up the development in North East Side of Thailand.

CYCU team is the first foreign volunteer group engaged in providing services locally. Provided by CYCU