For over a decade, The Asia Institute has designed unique educational opportunities by leveraging its comprehensive regional expertise and integrating our institutional partners’ ecosystems abroad.
Since the start of the Pandemic and the rise of virtual learning programs, The Asia Institute has put an emphasis on Project-Based Learning (PBL), whereby students work in small teams and collaborate with mission-driven NGOs and social enterprises, in real-time. The Asia Institute’s Social Impact Projects thus offer students an opportunity to design creative solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges.
Below, we have highlighted several recent projects and initiatives that The Asia Institute and our University partners have been hard at work on. Projects involving sustainable development and eco-tourism in Thailand, Coral Reef Conservation in Vietnam, Sustainable Farming in Indonesia and Tourism Promotion in Japan have provided a unique platform for students to design solutions that make a tangible difference in people’s lives.
If you are interested in exploring collaboration with The Asia Institute through our Social Impact Projects platform, please reach out here!
Thailand | Sustainable Development & Eco-Tourism
In partnership with Thailand-based NGO OurLand, a wildlife sanctuary based in the Western Forest Complex, student teams conducted research and provided recommendations to sustainably develop its land into an eco-tourist destination while ensuring human-wildlife coexistence. Read More.
Vietnam | Coral Reef Conservation
Coral reefs in Vietnam are under relentless stress from myriad global and local issues, including climate change, declining water quality, overfishing, pollution, and unsustainable coastal development. In partnership with a local company that develops coral reef growth kits, student groups are researching solutions that both benefit the local population economically and help to rebuild reefs that are facing a 98% rate of damage. Read More.
Indonesia | Sustainable Coffee Farming & Market Feasibility
In collaboration with a family-run coffee farm in a remote region of Lombok, Indonesia, student teams researched ways to re-use the farm’s coffee bean husks in a way that is both sustainable and profit-generating. The group also provided creative business solutions and recommendations including whether the company should export internationally, and working on a full market analysis of the company’s ideal customer, Read More.
Japan | Rural Tourism & Entrepreneurship Project
Students worked in groups to advise Forum Tauri Development Co., a Minami, Japan-based NGO to devise a strategy to keep young people from leaving Japan’s rural regions for the big cities, by encouraging entrepreneurship. Read More.
UCONN International Business Case Challenge (IBCC)
The Asia Institute served as a host partner in conjunction with the 2021 UCONN International Business Case Challenge (IBCC), an annual competition that brings teams of undergrads from around the world to compete virtually by solving real-life business issues. Read a Q&A with faculty advisor Arminda Kamphausen here and read a summary of the competition here.
