That’s incredible impact Illac, well done on all the hard work that you’ve been doing at the Liter of Light. It sounds again that by identifying that the cost of logistics in the UN projects [were so high], you’re really tackling a really clear need here.

Let’s move to Kei, you’re working with WonderLab. Tell us a little bit more about the impact that you’re creating and what led to your passion in driving this project?

[Kei Kawashima] – Thank you for inviting me. We created the mobile app Think Think! This is basically a problem-solving application, that contains more than 100 games with puzzles, and it is targeted at children 4-12 years old. There are mainly three impacts we are creating. The first one is that children can truly enjoy playing and running. All the games are very intuitive, and children can play without any knowledge, including literacy. That is why Think Think has over 1 million users across 150 countries without any marketing. The second impact is that we prove the effectiveness of thinking by conducting external research.

Together with Keio University, Japanese International Corporation of Technology, and the Cambodia Ministry of Education, the experiment proved that academic performance intelligence and non-cognitive skills were improved dramatically in groups that used Think Think! for three months.

We found that rather than teaching mathematical concepts, directly focusing on critical thinking helped improve their academic performance.

On top of this, great progress was seen in all of our students, regardless of their gender, grades or parent education. This is actually the reason why we were nominated at the Google Play Awards, as a finalist in Best Social Impact.

The third impact is that the Cambodian Government is actually considering  introducing it to their national curriculum, because of the positive results. If we succeed in contributing to Cambodian education truly, we are going to have more chances to contribute to other countries all over the world.

In the end, what led me to my passion to create Think Think!, comes from my experience teaching children in children’s homes or public schools in many Asian countries; Japan, Cambodia, Philippines, Laos, Mongolia, Vietnam, and now East Timor. I was so happy when I saw children ready to learn materials that we made. We improved our product over and over again, so that all children feel excited to learn. That leads to our current version of Think Think!

Thanks, very much Kei. Think Think! sounds like an excellent app and it’s creating some really strong impact there in learning for children. Well done on that.

You all have such diverse experience and have worked really extensively across the Asia Pacific region, and winning the Award highlights your dedication, your hard work and your skills to innovate. I’m keen to hear your observations of the social innovation movement in your respective countries and further afield, and where do you see key opportunities and next steps? Jonathan, you’re based out of Singapore. What are your thoughts?

[Jonathan E. Chua] – Here in Singapore, there’s actually a lot of support for social enterprises and social impact companies. There are actually NGOs that are here for start-ups, and then there’s also NGOs that are targeted towards different groups. For our groups it is mostly migrant workers, and they do a very good job in providing a safety net, a place for people to go to if they have issues with employers and things like that.

But I think what’s been lacking, and it’s not just lacking here in Singapore, but it’s lacking throughout the world, is that beyond that initial level of a safety net, the tools for migrant workers to really uplift themselves and their families are lacking.

That’s why we came up with BeamAndGo, it’s because we saw that a lot of migrant workers lack financial literacy, and as a result of that, they were slipping through the cracks. What you saw was a lot of spending abuse and remittance leakage. Those are the things that we’re trying to address, and what’s happening here in Singapore is we get a lot of help, and our core customers are migrant workers from the Philippines, but in Singapore, they also realise that it’s not just for Singaporeans only.

They see migrant workers as a very vital cog in the whole ecosystem here, and so there’s a lot of help that we get in terms of funding, in terms of brands, also in terms of mentorship and advisory. I think it’s really strong and it’s really a good example for a lot of countries to take this on.

I know in other countries like Taiwan, and I also see it in Japan where that’s also happening. But I’m really happy and I feel very lucky that we started BeamAndGo here in Singapore because of all the help that we get.