“Thammasat-Banpu” congratulates The Last Hope team from Watcharawittaya School on winning royal trophy in “Thammasat-Banpu Innovative Learning Program Season 2″

Throughout almost two years of incubation of all 14 high-school teams, “Thammasat – Banpu Innovative Learning Program Season 2” by the collaboration between Faculty of Learning Sciences and Education (LSED), Thammasat University and Banpu Public Company Limited, has completely equipped the students with skill sets required to become new-generation innovators through board game development that is fun, creative and reflects the social issues. The project has come to a successful conclusion and held the award ceremony to present the royally bestowed trophy from Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn and other prizes in Thammasat-Banpu Innovative Learning Program Season 2 via virtual event on July 12, 2021. The event was presided over by Assoc Prof Gasinee Witoonchart, Rector of Thammasat University and Mr.Chanin Vongkusolkit, Chairman of Banpu Public Company Limited. The champion team who won the royal trophy was “The Last Hope” team from Watcharawittaya School, Kamphaengphet with ‘Survivors from Black Snow’ boardgame. This board game presents the issue of how to remove sugarcane soot with an aim to enhance knowledge, understanding and awareness among farmers and people in the community on environmental and health care of people in Kamphaengphet province.

Assoc. Prof. Gasinee Witoonchart, Rector of Thammasat University said that the objective of the project, “Thammasat University, through the Faculty of Learning Sciences and Education” aims to incubated students to become quality adults which are the important factor for Thailand in moving forward. With the continuous support from Banpu for Thammasat – Banpu Innovative Learning Program, we are able to equip the participating students with thinking and mindset crucial for modern innovators. We see this as a great start to incubate the students with skill sets required to become new-generation innovators and reflect the social issues from them through their 14 boardgames. We hope that they will utilize the skills they’ve gained during this project to further develop themselves and grow as quality innovators for the Thai society in the future.

Mr.Chanin Vongkusolkit, Chairman of Banpu Public Company Limited said, “Banpu Public Company Limited has continuously operated projects that focus on developing human capital, especially young people who are the country’s future. We want to equip them with skills that will prepare them for the 21st century. In this project, we support incubation process of young innovators through development of boardgames that communicate the social issues to be solved. This learning method aligns with Banpu’s belief that ‘Learning is the Power of Change and Development’. The results which we can see today is that the 14 teams have created 14 board games on 3 focused areas including social development, healthy living, and adolescent science with interesting aspects on the issues. Beyond that, this project was met with challenges from the COVID-19 situation, but all teams were able to adjust themselves and resolved the unexpecting problems to continue developing their board games and communicate with their target audiences as their objectives. We are very impressed that the new generation is concerned about social issues and want to take part in solving them. We hope that these 14 board games will be further developed and create a positive impact on our society.”

“The Last Hope” team of Watcharawittaya School in Kamphaengphet, the winning team who designed ‘Survivors from Black Snow’ boardgame that can convey the issue of sugarcane soot and won the royal trophy said, “We are very happy and this is beyond our expectation. Not only the success that we can communicate the sugarcane soot issue which happens in our community and province, we also have been developing ourselves in a lot of skills through this project, which is a very long journey for us. Many times, we fell and almost gave up but we went through that discouragement, focusing on our work and coming to this point. We want to thank everyone involved, Banpu Public Company Limited and the Faculty of Learning Sciences and Education, Thammasat University who organized this great program and foresaw the importance of social issues and selected us to join the program. Also, the gamer coaches who have helped us by consulting in every process of board game development. We appreciate the support from our school and teachers as well as our friends in this program who had been together for almost 2 years on this journey. We hope that our boardgames will be beneficial to the society in one way or another.