What seemed like an ordinary Monday morning was not to be when an ensemble of hopeful contestants entered into a conference room on Monday, March 24, 2008 and waited to be briefed on the Innovation Week Challenge. Patiently, they waited the arrival of the President of ASES (Asia-Pacific Student Entrepreneurship Society) Thailand, BBA Thammasat’s premier club active in promoting entrepreneurship among the student body, the thought that ran through everybody’s mind was: What is the ‘product’? For those of you who are unfamiliar with Innovation Week, it is a week-long challenge, held from March 24th to March 31 for the second time, with only a few simple rules: contestants, in teams of 6 or less people, had to create value from a product which was provided. As simple as the task may sound, many contestants were unprepared for what was expected of them. As the representatives of each team came forward, closed their eyes and stood with their hands forward, palms wide open; they await what would fall into their hands. Slowly, one by one, each person felt the rubbery texture and the round shape of the product, and instinctively they knew what the product was: rubber bands! One of the first questions that teams began to ask immediately was - ‘What is value and how do we define it?’, ‘Which values do we want to create?’ and more importantly, ‘What kind of value can we create from such a simple products such as rubber bands?’ The answer to those questions lies only in imagination of the teams.
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After all the fan-fare had settled down, all ten teams got to the task. Some teams explored the conventional concept of trading the products, other teams tried to sell or auction it off, others tried to create something out of the rubber bands. While many teams faded from the limelight, two shining stars remain in the challenge. The two finalist teams arrived at Mayompuri Restaurant on March 31st in order to present a video clip of their work to a panel of distinguished judges lead by Khun Pattraporn Yamla-or and to ASES Club Advisor, Ajarn James Edward Rubesch. One team, named 18 Crowns, were just freshmen at BBA Thammasat, while the other, Smile, was a cast of students from SIIT and other institutions (some were still in high school!). Although both teams had came up with very different ideas and approaches, what was very clear in their presentation was the effort, commitment and hard work that was put into making each video clip. 18 Crowns take on the challenge was to create social value by using the rubber bands as a tool to discourage profanity and drowsiness that was prevalent in the everyday lives of BBA students. Moreover, they had succeeded in creating social and entertainment value from the hilarity of their video clip! As for Smile, although their video was also aimed at creating social value, a completely different approach was taken: members of smile used rubber bands and scraps of paper and broken pencils turn it into a small notebooks or a usable pencil. The touching part of the video was that the books and pencils were given away to street children, who could be seen to be very happy in receiving them. The videos, although only 2 minutes long, had professionally captured the value that both teams tried to accomplish and thoroughly captivated the audiences’ attention.
After a grand feast and a closing speech by Ajarn Edward, the contest was drawn to a close. Both teams receive prizes that were well worth their effort. As the curtains were drawn, only smiles could be seen from every contestants’ face: judges had a great time watching the entertaining presentation, while the teams won fabulous prizes worth more that 10,000 baht (highlights include a dinner cruise on the world famous Chao Phraya Princess cruise and a chance to learn cooking at the Cooking Club school), while everyone were stuff from the gourmet dinner. It is undoubtedly that members of both teams would one day become leading innovators and creative thinkers of Thailand. I, on behalf of every ASES member that had worked tirelessly to make Innovation Week a success and as the host of the Innovation Week Challenge, hope that this small contest will be the first step, of many steps to come, towards the creation of an entrepreneurial spirit and community among BBA Thammasat students.
Yours truly,
Amarit Charoenphan
President, ASES Thailand
Posted date: May 14, 2008 – 13:30 hrs. |
