Travel app for freedom wins 'Shark Tank' prize
Choose a country to visit. Answer questions related to challenges to democracy. Get an “Assistant Intelligence” for sound judgment. Find out how liberal solutions work.
All this will be available in the Freedom Explorer mobile application, which has recently won a grant of Euro 5,000 from a 'Shark Tank' competition in Berlin on 7 December 2017. 'Shark Tank', based on a popular American teleivision series, pools innovative ideas and rewards the best proposals with funding so they can be actually implemented.
FNF Thailand conceptualized the technology-based educational tool to promote liberal democracy in a more interactive way. “We need an imaginative approach to counter the rise of authoritarianism and populism. Through the app, people would be able to directly respond to issues in governance. In the course of the game, they will realize that liberal democracy is still the best way forward,” said FNF Thailand Country Director Katrin Bannach.
Dr. Pimrapaat Dusadeeisariyakul, FNF Thailand Project Manager, who has designed several board games to promote democracy and human rights pitched the Freedom Explorer app to optimize the information and knowledge available in the Foundation. “We’d like to propose liberal solutions that work based on FNF’s vast experience worldwide,” said Dusadeeisariyakul. “We will provide a complete user experience, an exciting journey first in Southeast and East Asia, and then later on around the globe,” she added.
Linking the region
Freedom Explorer is part of the Freedom Journey ASIA campaign of FNF Regional Office for Southeast & East Asia (SEEAsia) that aims to translate the concept of freedom into everyday language.
In a workshop attended by representatives from FNF Offices in Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand where the Foundation’s strategy for 2018-2022 was discussed, a more solid and synchronized effort to promote the activities in the region was proposed. The mobile app was a welcomed initiative, as well as the aggressive promotion of #FNFSEEAsia.
This project was later cascaded to the FNF Office in Vietnam whose programs focus on free trade and SMEs development.
FNF has over 60 project countries worldwide. In SEEAsia, it works in Cambodia, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Foundation’s Innovation Hub is also currently in Hong Kong.