Connecting the Mekong through Education and Training Quarterly Report Year 4 First Quarter - October 1 to December 31, 2017

Eight of 11 Mekong Learning Centers (MLCs) have developed plans to expand the use of the MS2W toolkits beyond currently participating departments, and three of 11 MLCs have plans to or have already begun to expand the MS2W model institution-wide. Two MLCs, Mahidol University (MU) and the National University of Laos (NUOL), have requested assistance from USAID COMET to establish a faculty development program and to support their institutional expansion. Through instructor professional development, a cornerstone of MLC institutionalization, the project has cultivated a cadre of Master Instructors who will be champions of the MS2W model. These selected instructors, who averaged 90% across the three stages of online training, are being considered for service on the emerging Professional Development Expert Team, and will support the scale and institutionalization of the MS2W toolkits both within their institutions and to new institutions. Encouraging active relationships between institutions and local business partners is another cornerstone of the USAID COMET approach to sustainability. MLCs are beginning to show significant gains in developing or building upon established local business partnerships, using the MS2W toolkits as a guide. The project has also worked together with technical specialists in several areas to begin laying the foundation for expert teams, which will be formalized through the upcoming grant phase. The purpose of expert teams is to cultivate a group of instructors or administrators across the MS2W network who have the vision and the skills to promote, build, and expand on the MS2W approach to Professional Development, Work-based Learning, and Innovation. The next grant phase will focus on establishing and coaching these expert teams, which will begin to take lead the MS2W model as USAID COMET gradually phases out operations over the final 20 months of the project. The project and Texas A&M University (TAMU) collaborated to develop a design for an extended Innovation Challenge/IDE that promotes key work readiness skills, digital literacy skills, and entrepreneurial skills across a series of events that culminate in a challenge competition. The first MLC to pilot this model was the Institute of Technology of Cambodia (ITC). The ITC "Techno Innovation Challenge" was scheduled across four weekends from November 17 to December 9. During the final weekend, a panel of judges selected the three winning teams, each of which received a cash award sponsored by ITC's industry partners and will advance to participate in TAMU's global Invent for the Planet Challenge in February, 2018. USAID COMET continued to enrich the content and user experience of the MS2W portal to increase the number of engagements and registrations to the wider audience and outreach to youth or job seekers and industry partners. In this quarter, the project successfully integrated Edmodo's learning management system with the portal and finalized the implementation work with YouRock's youth career platform. Instructors can now access online professional development courses and workspaces through the Instructors' hub page, and their MS2W account is now synchronized with their Edmodo account for a seamless cross-platform experience. The project also continued to work with multinational partners, engaging them in work directly in support of MS2W activities. This quarter, Cisco and USAID COMET promoted the launch of the Women Rock-IT series on the MS2W portal and through online channels. Intel donated 100 Galileo Gen2 boards for the MLCs to use for innovation challenges/IDEs, and has also offered to donate a total of 750 Intel Galileo Gen2 Boards to 8 MLCs to be used in classes on Microprocessors, Internet of Things and Embedded Systems, and in project-oriented learning activities, including the expansion of the challenge activities.