[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Creating an innovation and running a business is not an easy task. In the midst of the Covid-19 epidemic, small and large businesses have adapted from changing circumstances and are difficult to predict what will happen in the future. When it takes place in new companies and organizations, they focus on using the least amount of resources to survive in an uncertain situation. The impact circle not only changed the economy and employment, but also spread to society, public health and education.
One issue affected that is not different from the economic sector is the education sector.
More than 1. 57 billion students from 191 countries, or 91.3% of learners worldwide [1], have to walk out of the classroom and change their learning styles to other ways. In Thailand, the impact of school closures has a direct result of the education and student development with more than 13 million Thai students from elementary school to university, including the economic impact that will occur on the students’ family at the same time. Although this challenge is for all groups of children, it is expected to be especially severely affected, 2.4 million of the 13 million students who are in poverty in many dimensions [2], such as poor children, fragile families, violence, drugs, disabled students, children who rely on breakfast or lunch from school [3].
From the increasingly serious challenges, changes occur quickly and are difficult to predict. In an unusual crisis like this, the lesson learned is found that the important thing to overcome this crisis is learning and understanding to find ways to solve problems. What happens can come back to the thought; in fact, when the problem arose outside of the thought box, the face of the problem-solving process is therefore important to be in line with the changing context. The traditional solution framework cannot be relied upon, but the survival process needs to be fast, concise, and highly effective to be timely to the changing situation. In order to have a process for solving problems like this, the fact is that it may not be created by the work of any one person or an organization alone. But the collaboration of people from many different talents, whether you are a start-up, entrepreneur, private or government sector that sees Pain Points from customer problems or social issues. Everyone should be knowledgeable and know how, but still cannot find a solution from the frame obscured in the changing situation. In this situation, it is difficult to solve problems alone. If all can join together in order to unlock the impossibility, it can be possible from those who see the opportunity from many sectors. This is considered an important opportunity for the creation of urgent innovation that enable the participation of people in all sectors of society to play a role in driving this challenge.
When a crisis is an opportunity to drive innovation, there is an opportunity from the crisis in the creation of innovation that come to the Disrupt, which came from the Disrupt of the Covid-19 epidemic. One interesting example from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States has stepped up to create an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem by collecting initiatives, research ideas and innovations to help those affected by Covid-19.
During the university closure, students, professors, and university personnel join together in creative activities and develop teaching styles or innovations that are consistent with the situation. The development of a student-centered approach for students in the university can be said that it is no different from the way of business development and operations that think customers as the design of products and services (Customer Centric Approach) and thinking about how to help each other more than how to compete.
Covid-19 Rapid Innovation Dashboard: Hub of MIT’s Covid- 19 related activities [4] was set up to collect activities, projects, research, and innovation information in the form of project promotion and support with the same goal of reducing the spread of Covid-19 by more than 50 projects within a 3-week period from mid March to early April including medical programs, data development, global epidemics, and education.
The obvious benefit of this dashboard is to show who has done, including how this dashboard visitors can be a part of helping. For visibility, transparency and accountability, these factors have resulted in the exchange and the development of ideas with support. It can be said that this dashboard’s function is similar to being a match maker between project operators or impact creators, the impact investors, such as investors, experts and people in need to meet each other (End-user), which leads to clear participation between the project operators, the target groups and the helpers.
An example of this dashboard’s results on education issues is called CovEd [5], which acts as an intermediary to connect youths with higher education such as university students and students in vocational schools to first grade and high school students (K-12) with low incomes to receive academic assistance during school closures both online and other websites and platforms for remote students who do not have access to the internet.
Thailand’s gaps in the development of social innovation awaits fulfillment.
A study of Thai social innovation ecosystems by ChangeFushion (2019) [6] found that the four challenges for creating social innovation in Thailand waiting to be fulfilled were the lack of co-operation between resources and organizations (Lack of intermediaries), the government instability (Inconsistency within the government), the lack of awareness and social investment gap for social enterprises. The consequence of these issues is that lack the unity for solving problems, overlapping problems and operations of target groups and the lack of deep understanding of the issues in the design of the problem-solving process.
Everyone is the person who fills the gap in innovation development.
It is undeniable that one of the closing gaps in the development of social innovation is System-Changing Social Innovation, when looking back at the individual level If you are a person who has dreams, sees social issues and business opportunities until a knowledgeable person whether in public or private organizations.
This is an opportunity to replenish your thoughts from the impossible to be possible by participating in the unmet need, knowledge sharing and knowhow to create innovations that meet the challenges in society.
Problems and challenges arose cannot be resolved by one department or just a group of people. However, everyone is part of helping to monitor, tackle, identify social issues and target groups, as well as connect networks between stakeholders, impact creators and impact investors because we believe that everyone is part of creating an innovation ecosystem.
“It’s time for you to decide who you want to be or who you are in this Social Innovation Ecosystem …”
[1] Data from UNESCO (https://en.unesco.org/covid19/educationresponse) as of 20 April 2020.
[2] Child Multidimensional poverty report in Thailand, Human Resources Development and Poverty Reduction Program at the University of Oxford in collaboration with the UNICEF and the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC), https://www.unicef.org/thailand/th/reports/
[3] Poomsaran Thongliamnak (2020). The effect of Covid-19 pandemic on the education system around the world and Thailand in an economic perspective. Searched on 20 April 2020 from https://thaipublica.org/2020/04/19-economists-with-covid-19-15/
[4] Additional website details: https://innovation.mit.edu/c19rapidinnodash_mitglobalprojects/
[5] Additional website details: https://www.facebook.com/groups/493988507924808/
[6] Changefushion (2019). Social Innovation Eco-system Study (Thailand). Searched on April 20, 2020 from https://drive.google.com/file/d/ 1ooMnSx4XiLLiFIl3UqQTVSZ4OsDpmLel / view.
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Chinpanee Sukkawattano
[/vc_column_text][vc_separator color=”custom” align=”align_left” border_width=”2″ el_width=”20″ accent_color=”#f9ef73″ css=”.vc_custom_1592978679970{margin-bottom: 7px !important;}”][vc_custom_heading text=”Academic EQUITABLE EDUCATION RESEARCH INSTITUE (EEFI)” font_container=”tag:div|font_size:14|text_align:left|line_height:2″ use_theme_fonts=”yes” css=”.vc_custom_1592981927619{margin-top: 0px !important;}”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row]
