Cambodia Alumni Update by Maneth Nay

The STEM Festival viewed from above- many white tents, lots of people, and colorful umberellas

“Cambodia Science and Engineering Festival 4,” is the largest STEM festival in Cambodia initiated by Mr. Allen Tan, Managing Director at STEM Cambodia Organization. As a board director at STEM Cambodia Organization, my team and I organized the Cambodia Science and Engineering Festival 4, which is known as CSEF4 on March 1-3, 2018 at the Olympic National Stadium in Cambodia under the theme “STEM for my future, STEM for Cambodia.” The festival aims to raise awareness of STEM Education, which includes Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, and to encourage Cambodian students to choose STEM for their higher education.

It was our 4th time organizing the festival, and it had been a very huge success in our history with more than 29,000 people of all ages visiting our festival. With the support from and cooperation with the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sport, the U.S. Embassy, the U.K. Embassy, institutions, organizations, companies, and schools, many exhibitions, performances, fun quizzes, robotic competition, experiments, and many other features were conducted, which allowed the festival to be able to bring not only knowledge to our visitors, but also excitement.

Maneth, the author, drinks some cold beverages

Approximately 250 organizers and volunteers were working so hard for months in planning, and making this event happen. With the success of this year’s festival, it has shown that these people are truly the young leaders, who are committed, passionate, and dedicated in contributing to the development of the society.

Lastly, I am so thankful for the U.S. Embassy, Global UGRAD, my advisors at World Learning, and Carroll College, who gave me the chance to spend one amazing semester in the U.S. With all the great experiences from America, these have inspired and encouraged me to do something this big for society.

Written by Maneth Nay (Cambodia), a 2017-2018 Global UGRAD student at Carroll College.