How I Changed Cambodia 2017-2018

My name is Sorn Leza. I’m 13 years old. I am a student at the Liger Leadership Academy. This is my second year at Liger and I am from Koh Kong province. My favorite thing to do is research on history of Cambodia. Liger Leadership Academy is a school that gives scholarship to those who had passed the exam. Liger is different from government school because they let the student learn by doing experiment and having trips to go to see the real situation. 

Now all the students are working on How I change Cambodia based on these five points which are; think about change, raise awareness about necessary change, try to promote and encourage change, develop the possibility of change, actually create change in Cambodia this year? As I am a change agent in Cambodia I have done so many things that could create change in Cambodia for this year but only three things that I chose to talk about are creating a Geography book which we are working on right now, second is Technovation which I have done last year and the third is Humans of Cambodia and we have done it this year too. Those are the accomplishments that I have done for the past year. All of them are really helpful to Cambodia.

Geography is an exploration. The goal of learning about geography we want to make a book that help change Cambodia which help the children in Cambodia to know more about their own country. Before we create the book we have divided into four region which have four different group of student to explore around. Each region had only seven week. In seven week we divide into three part which are Before trip, During trip and after trip. Before we went on trip we have been doing research on internet about the province we will go. On that research is based on five theme which is location and special term, place and region, physical system, human system and movement , the last one is environment and society. During trip we will interview the people that live in that area to find some information history or interesting thing and also to get the information about the people that live in that area. Also we went to the the department of culture and fine art to ask about the information about each provinces. After trip we will have two week to work on the information that we get from Department of culture and fine art which include five themes. Also we need to work on choose the most good story of people that we have interview in each province. Then, start to write it again and translate into khmer. One more thing is all the student need to work on student prediction of each province that they have been to which write about they think the place or province will be like in the future. After finish doing all that thing which in seven weeks we will have sharation and Liger will be invite other school or other people from outside the school to come and see the presentation that all the student to show what they have done in this exploration and share about what is their highlight or what special about that province. After finish all the four region. We will have five exploration and three of them are doing about geography. Also we have on exploration that will create game for geography for the student interested in reading geography book and for them to gain more knowledge about Cambodia.

Technovation is a technology entrepreneur program and we need to create an application to compete with the other team. Liger had provided this really great opportunity to us too. There are four group of Liger student that want to join the competition. In each team there are five people. Each team need to choose the topic that could help to develop their country. In there they have six main topic for us to choose. They are Poverty, Peace, Health, Education, Environment, Equality. If the group have the idea that out of those topics. They can also choose it. Each group will create the application that they have idea about which using MIT app inventor. All the student who have join that program need to go to learn with their mentors every Saturday or Sunday for 12 weeks. When they go to meet their mentors. The mentors will teach them how to code the app in MIT app inventor or help them with creating a business. After 12 week  each team will need to create the slide to do the presentation for the mini pitch. When they do the presentation the judge will starting to ask the question about their business or code. After the mini pitch they will selected 6 team to go to national pitch. In national pitch they will present to judges and the judge will ask the question. Then, hey will choose the winner team for national pitch will get the prize. Then, who that didn’t get to win or who win in national pitch will have the other chance for the global pitch. The judge from around the world will select 12 team to go to compete in in global pitch which in San Francisco, California, USA for one week. The group that win in global pitch will get the prize from the Technovation program. I and my team also get the opportunity to join in that program too. My app name Cambodia Identity Product. How  can our app help to develop Cambodia? Well! Because now a day Cambodia product is not so popular and the crafts people will don’t have job to do so they decided to migrant to other country. Our app help Cambodia by promoting Cambodia traditional Product to the world. Also our is to connect the crafts people and the customer together so there will be a reduction of Cambodian migrant to other countries. I and my team really think that is a really great to protect our culture. In 12 weeks me and my team work really hard on that project. After 12 weeks. Our team did a presentation to judge for  minipitch. Our team didn’t get to win in mini pitch and national pitch but our team has been select to the global pitch. I really proud of myself and my team. It was a really amazing opportunity for me and my team to told the global about how amazing Cambodia was and it was the first time for me and my team to stay on the airplane. My favorite place in San Francisco is Golden Gate bridge because when I went to that place I felt very fresh because of the weather is cold and windy and I also met some Cambodian people that live in San Francisco. I met a man name Mony. He is a construction manager. He’s really kind bring us to beach, shopping, on the top of the mountain and he bring to eat KFC. From join that kind of program I think It’s really amazing. I have learnt so many thing such : code, how to make business plan, how to work as a team, improve presentation skill. The most challenge for me are in the team we have different idea so some time we hard to talk to each other. Also on weekend we don’t really have time to rest and it make us really tired. The last thing that I want is I want to inspire other girl to join that kind of program and believe that girl is also can involved in technology and creating their own business too.

Human of Cambodia exploration is a project that study about people’s life. In this exploration there are 14 students. We have seven weeks to do that project. In this exploration students had learnt a lot of things such as interview skill, photography skill, create a blog. We also go out to interview and take a photo two times in a week. When we come back we will upload their information to our blog and it will publish to the world. I think this is one of great project to do that could help change Cambodia. I think it was my first time to learnt about people’s life and I think it was really great. I think it was the first step of being a change agent and in the future I will make a big change of Cambodia.