Educational Network for Practical Information Technologies (enPiT) Project: Cooperation between The Faculty of Education, Chulalongkorn University  and The University of Aizu, Japan

The Faculty of Education, Chulalongkorn University has signed a cooperation agreement with The University of Aizu to participate in the Educational Network for Practical Information Technologies (enPiT) project under University of Aizu’s the Creativity Development Program supporting by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). The program aims to enhance practical learning skills for the future innovations. This program focuses on applying information technology to solve real problems in the community through project-based learning management.

This project had recruited students from 37 higher education institutions from various universities around the world. The Faculty of Education, Chulalongkorn University is one of the cooperating institutions which has signed a five-year cooperation agreement with The University of Aizu. The Department of Educational Technology and Communications nominated Ms. Thanaporn Manosumrit, Ms. Napa Champatip and Mr. Siwakorn Malakul, who are 3rd, 4th and 5th year undergraduate students respectively, to be the representatives from the Faculty joining this project.

Our representatives are interested in abandoned houses, wastelands, space conditions, city potential and history topic occurred in Minami, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. They had analyzed these issues to design a prototype project with students from two Japanese universities, including The University of Aizu and Nihon University, to develop and utilize technology for the community. After their projects had been done, the representatives presented their projects to the Minami Aizu Municipality through web applications displaying the utilization of abandoned houses and abandoned lands. They had launched three web applications solving the problems in the community, namely;

First, The web application called “VH Sharing”- collect & promote vacant house usage. It provides people with uninhabited or abandoned houses a way to buy/sell their own houses with negotiable price. The web application aims to minimize disadvantages of abandoned and uninhabited houses. Via this application, the buyer would receive information about the houses before making a decision to purchase. Simultaneously, the seller has expanded their chance to sell the house where they do not live in.

They also launched ‘De Lorean’ web application which is providing the information about upcountry houses in Japan for users who are interested in. The users could check house information before making a decision to deal or rent.

Last, RETURN web application had developed as the brokers for renting or selling abandoned houses for housing business by creating community storytelling to raise awareness of the value of the domicile. It also boosts the incentives for starting a business to develop their community in the homeland including creating marketing strategies to promote business.

Those three projects of our representatives are the adaptations of technology knowledge to solve real problems practically in accordance with social context via web application to reach the target group immediately and suit for the change of living in a sustainable global society.