sharing economy a different challenge?

My disappearance has made myself restless and so I promised myself last night to write this morning, no matter what ka!

 

Hope you all had some relaxing time during the weekend na ka. I was quite busy but got to learn a bit about our 'sharing economy'.

These days basically because of the hot weather, I decided to use my mobile app to call a cab. Yesterday, at my friend's house, I did it again.

After one driver accepted to take me to my destination, there was a statement saying something like this person 'is deaf or has hearing difficulties'. In that 5 minutes, it appeared twice before he arrived.

What would pop up on your mind ka?

My friend said it could be a challenge to talk with him if there was anything about the trip but we both agreed that using 'Notes' on my mobile could work as one good way to communicate with him...though he must be driving.

In any case, I was at least prepared. I was feeling good too that this type of business has been open up for people with disabilities of some form ka.

The trip went ok at first without us talking at all. The driver followed the route shown on the mobile app and then I noticed that the route wasn't the best as it unnecessarily went too far out.

I decided to talk with him!

He doesn't have any hearing impairment ka. I told him what was shown and he said he must have pressed the wrong button.

Um! Immediately I thought of how to make sure this error about the driver wouldn't occur ka...there should be some keywords to confirm with the user before they take any action, there could be some instructions during orientation or some experiences sharing within the group and with passengers too.....my mind went on and on ka.

The trip was much longer than usual and the app didn't really work well. If without my instruction, it could have gone even farther. I wrote to the company and got 20 baht credit for my next ride. My intention was to let them know what needed to be corrected but I guess we can expect to see the sharing economy that needs to engage passengers in some ways more often laew ka.

Happy Monday na ka.

Indonesian students' IZN efforts

Hello to you all and hope you survive the heat well ka!

Yesterday, I gave a talk at Mahidol to about 200 graduate students, mainly from Indonesia. The talk went ok and I just couldn't keep what I saw for myself ka.

The conference was organized by the Overseas Indonesian Student Association in Thailand, calling for papers for presentations from Indonesian students back home. All the 4 conferences were held in a host university in Thailand and they plan to organize one at Khon Kaen University next year.

If it doesn't sound so unique, let me add more information ka.

This has been the efforts of Indonesian students studying in Thailand, in cooperation with their host universities and their Indonesian Embassy in Thailand. The Chair of this Association is a lady who's working for her doctorate at Mahidol university. She said the challenge to organize such a conference has been the communication to contact in the Thai language, not Bahasa Indonesia.

Well! the event turned out to be quite successful as they could draw a huge crowd of Indonesian students to fly all the way from their homeland. I met two from Ajeh while a few others who introduced themselves were from Surabaya, Kalimantan, etc.

After my talk, there were about 10 who raised their hands to ask questions. Several issues concerned how to hold on to their values amid the world changes. 

What lessons have I learned?

1. This is another form of exchanges that contributes greatly to internationalize students and at the same time, for them to present their research papers.

2. The unique cooperation has been quite sustainable from the Indonesian Embassy to the Indonesian members who carry on this academic tradition for at least 4 years now.

3. While participants have to pay their own ways, they learn to take part in an academic platform and see more of the world, at least of one ASEAN country, even within a short time.

4. The organizers gained lots of life skills and confidence especially the cross-cultural set, managing it from another country....naturally, they  must have gained respect from their host university observing the success of the event.

5. I feel so very sorry to see very few Thais there.....it would have been a greater interactive forum with more Thais involved so our kids would learn too, academically, professionally, and personally.

6. One question to our students in other countries too....would they be able to organize such an event and sustain the efforts?

In any case, have a great Friday the 13th, away from being haunted ka!

Being an international/global person

These few weeks, I've been talking quite a bit about internationalization (IZN), English, and quality to students or faculty members. Here are some of the stories to share ka:

1. Empathy: What do you think about the terrorists' attacks at the airport in Belgium? One girl interviewed by a TV channel said she didn't feel a thing as it was far from Thailand.

Using this as an introduction to my talk worked quite ok. It was difficult to check how people thought about it but one Fulbright family member said he felt really sad and when he checked what was said on his Facebook, he saw many saying, "Pray for Belgium". It made him feel like being part of it.

This secondary school ajarn is a truly 'inter' person who has empathy! It's an important quality we need to instil in our education community members especially when the world is increasingly technology- and money-led.

When asked what made him feel he is "inter" (global citizen more or less), he said he thought of the ability to think and the courage to ask and argue based on sensible reasons.

2. Monolingual vs Bilingual: English has always been seen as our barrier that can't be torn down. But it's not for this ajarn who said he has been trying hard for years, knowing it's important.

He said whenever he asked a native speaker of English how many languages he/she could speak and the answer was, "English only", he would think he was more fortunate to be able to pick up more than one language and that also made him proud and encouraged.

3. Everywhere is Thailand?: One faculty member of a higher education institution was sharing his experience with the group, pointing out that he doesn't believe that being proficient in English could help with travelling to an English-speaking country. He survived fine living in one such country for three months!

He then went on to say in that country, some policemen came to his place to charge him for burning leaves which was illegal. He was upset because he only burned a few leaves! He found it unreasonable.

Even when his intention was to stress the importance of the Thai language and dialects, his comments were unacceptable to me ka. I then told him that I agreed to the Thai dialects part but when in Rome, do as the Romans to observe their rules and regulations too as it's their/ not our territory where we're familiar with our own contexts to act appropriately.

As a faculty member who has to be a role model for future generations, his stories made me very worried ka!

Well! a long holiday to be happier for more positive energy to keep going ka.