The presenter will outline challenges faced by a national university in rural Cambodia. He will discuss a developmental project that has led to ongoing collaboration with Cambodia's Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MOEYS) and a rural university.

He will discuss two future projects. The first involves the development of a local agricultural product to improve its quality and foster entrepreneurial skills among local producers, leading to the creation of a local brand. This project targets include establishing and registering a unique breed, evaluating soil quality, providing guidance on cultivation techniques, standardizing fruit quality, and facilitating brand creation and business planning. The participants will require basic English language skill that are directly applicable to the intended learning and training outcomes. As such, training for the language support staff in the Project Based Learning (PBL) for an English language support program will be one of the key preliminary objects of this project. As a newly established university with few faculty members with advanced degrees, and research cooperation is essential to train young faculty members.

The second project aims to empower local youth with computer, entrepreneurial, marketing, and English language communication skills to create sustainable local economic opportunities through tourism. This will necessarily include the development of an independent PBL framework and peer learning network with student groups and the community cooperative to ensure English that insufficient language competency does not become a barrier to the project goals. By partnering with a local university and leveraging their expertise, this initiative seeks to mitigate youth migration to Phnom Penh and the Cambodian-Thai border, where exploitation is prevalent.

Finally, an open discussion will seek input and expertise from attendees, with the aim of fostering potential collaborations among interested participants.