AIS Academy is celebrating the success of its “Jump Thailand, Thinking for Thais” project, which started with its own corporate lessons and has now expanded into a strong collaboration with allies in the public and private sectors.
At present, the project has more than 15,000 members in numerous communities all over the country.
Kantima Lerlertyuttitham, chief human resources officer of Advanced Info Service and Intouch Holdings, says that the AIS Group, as a digital-related organisation, has earned valuable experience from undergoing self-disruption that can be shared with others.
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She says AIS Academy is sharing lessons learned internally with people outside the organisation, by thinking for and reaching out of them.
“Jump Thailand” represents its coordination with the Thai Ministry of Social Development and Human Security. The project aims at encouraging different social elements to work together for the country’s sustainable development.
“AIS believes that our organisation alone, or the public sector unilaterally, cannot make it possible. Everyone has their own strength and weakness. AIS can’t do everything by ourselves,” Kantima said.
Rapid and unpredictable changes in this digital age are a big challenge to the public and private sectors, as well as businesses and organisations, in improving the potential of their manpower.
It is not just about technology. What’s more important is the upgrade of people’s capability and potential, as well as their goodness and morality. Education is the key in effecting such positive changes in a concrete manner.
The current Covid-19 pandemic and digital disruption have made it more difficult for young people in the poor rural areas to access knowledge.
This problem may not be solved immediately, but collaborations between the public and private sectors are providing opportunities to children on the fringe and those in remote rural schools to gain access to knowledge. This in turn helps reduce social inequality while giving the rural children an opportunity to improve themselves.
Preparing people for digital disruption
Starting as the Academy for Thais, the project helps prepare people with no access to knowledge for the digital disruption while encouraging the Thais to “jump” and get over the crisis.
Jump Thailand is a mission that is driven through three major areas: occupational improvement, expansion of learning opportunities, and adoption of innovations in everyday life.
In the first area, Jump over the Challenge encourages rural villagers to produce local products and offer them for sale through affordable channels, with the help of Shopee e-commerce company.
Secondly, Jump with Edtech helps to expand learning opportunities through digital technology, which in turn also allows participating teachers to improve their potential. This results in easy access to knowledge, particularly through a digital library.
Lastly, Jump to Innovation involves concrete adoption of innovations in the everyday life. The Covid situation has underlined the importance of digital transformation. Believing in people’s potential to adopt digital alternation to their lifestyle, AIS welcomes new ideas about creating innovations, such as one that can improve the air quality.
The AIS project aims to share its knowledge with the participants so that they can improve on earning their living, according to Kantima.
People are key to country’s progress
AIS is building a digital library system for schools in poor rural areas of the country, an innovation co-developed with the National Innovation Agency (NIA) and Shopee. Many Thais lack the opportunity to improve their skills, and the digital library makes it possible for them to study anywhere, and not just in the classroom.
The Embassy of Canada to Thailand and AIS agree that learning via a digital system, with follow-ups, offers great access for Thai children and adults to knowledge suitable to them. They do not need to further their studies overseas, making education much cheaper. Thais all over the country, children and adults alike, will be able to access a variety of knowledge from Canada on the platform that AIS provides.
AIS allies, including the Ministry Of Social Development and Human Security, NIA, Shopee, the Canadian Embassy, and others are all attempting to help Thailand to tackle its problem, with the goal of further developing the country. They are not giving material objects — it is rather knowledge and opportunities, which are more sustainable.
As an international partner, the Canadian Embassy plays the role that helps with lifelong learning, offering easy access to knowledge in this age of new normal. People can now study at any time they like, with any kind of equipment, and from anywhere in the world.
The learning is endless — people can study when they are children, while they are working adults, or after their retirement. The Learn Di platform helps users to plan their lifelong learning by themselves. When this project starts in 2022, the learners will get a micro-credential for every course they complete.
Kantima said that initially, collaboration between the public and private sectors is often viewed as challenging. That is because they have completely different work cultures. However, for her, working with state agencies in this project allows both sides to make use of their strengths while recognizing their differences.
AIS Academy is a centre for learning, developing technologies, creating innovations, and building people with leadership skills and morality — all through a digital system. Collaboration with the state sector allows sustainable growth in those areas, resulting in a rapid expansion of the project, which currently has more than 15,000 members.
Jump Thailand: Paying back to the motherland
It is a policy of the company’s executive board and management to create the Jump Thailand project, with a mission that was clearly stated. An obligation for the AIS people is not just to make the organisation grow further. The most important duty for all the AIS people, as Thailand’s children and grandchildren, is to pay back to the country, says Kantima.
Jump Thailand activities are held every year as the project is growing bigger. This year, the project has drawn more allies from the public and private sectors.
“We believe that AIS has a duty more important than just making the organisation grow bigger. As Thais, we are obliged to make Thai society stronger. By working with our allies, we are convinced that this project will be sustainable,” Kantima said.
She added that despite its humble start as a small project, Jump Thailand has grown strongly to encompass a wide range of organisations from the public and private sectors, with more collaboration expected next year.
After working with the state sector for four to five months, the project has seen a rapid expansion and brought about a lot of positive changes in the areas covered.
“AIS hopes to serve as a lighting match that helps to spark coordination between the public and private sectors in improving the potential of Thai people,” Kantima said. “The aim is to create a society of sharing, thinking for others, and reaching out — with the ultimate goal of serving the national interest,” she concluded.
