CaF Youth - Virtual Forum feature ASEAN young leaders

On Tuesday, June 23, 2020 "From Crisis to Next Normal: Remaking the future" - will feature three ASEAN youth representatives from Thailand, Myanmar and Vietnam - to discuss the situation on the ground during COVID-19 pandemic which practice businesses or situation should stop, start and accelerate.

Panel Discussion

Panel Speakers:

1. Pawee Nontamongkoltorn from Thailand, Advisor of Thammasat University Model United Nations Club

2. Anh Viet Nguyen from Vietnam, Environmentalist and YSEALI alumni, Vietnam

3. Cape Diamond from Myanmar, Multimedia journalist

Panel Conclusions: 

Education

Key point

• Educational inequality

• Ineffective teaching practices

Remaking the future

Because of the COVID-19 lockdown situation in Thailand, Thai students will be out of school. That means students should go for online classes. However, transitioning to online classes is not easy for every student in Thailand because a number of them do not have their own instructional equipment and lack of internet accessibility in order to study from their home. These students usually come from low-income families, which are severely affected by this transition. The government should consider providing assistance to students especially those from low-income households.

Environment

• Key point

• Lack of plastic waste consideration

Remaking the future

With more people stuck at home due to the COVID-19 lockdown situation, there has been a high in demand for food delivery services. The factor driving demand for food delivery services is the increased number of plastic waste. Plastic problem is for everyone - “It is more than that, it is not just like that”. We should raise awareness on the effects of plastic and improper waste disposal. Moreover, we need to stop destroying our environment.

Society

Key point

Job loss and layoffs

Internet accessibility inequality

Remaking the future

• Economic shutdown lead to a huge number of workers such as journalism and garment industry have lost their jobs, salary cutoff or were suspended from work due to the Covid-19 outbreak. Such a situation, the worker only have the ways to stay or leave their job. It might be a long-term effects. How could we find the best solution for this? It a big challenge for Myanmar government.

• Internet access plays a crucial role in enabling people to access information about Covid-19, or even the dairy life. As a restricting access to the internet, it violates human rights in the freedom of expression and lack of all information to prevent the spread of the virus. 

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On Tuesday, June 30, 2020 "From Crisis to Next Normal: Coronavirus and the environment" - we know that carbon emissions have sharply fallen, a new world for urban wildlife, waterways run clear, and nature has been recovered during the lockdown. But will all these changes actually remain in the long run? What about plastic waste on the rise and climate crisis goes ignored (for now). We could see the long-lasting positive environmental change after the pandemic. But it’s all down to how we move on after lockdown.

Panel Discussion

Panel Speaker:

1. Cathleen Ariella Simatupang, Ph.D Student in Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand

2. Marinel Sumook Ubaldo, Climate Activist Registered Social Worker Co-Founder, Youth Leaders Environmental Action Federation

3. Mark Liao, Advisor to Sarawak Eco-Warriors (SEW) and YSEALI alumni 

4. Parkin Maskulrath, Environmental Scientist, The King's Royally Initiated Laem Phak Bia Environmental Research and Development Project

Panel Conclusions:

To be clear, the COVID-19 pandemic is first and foremost a public health and humanitarian crisis. The economic impact, however, has been devastating. This pandemic has put the firms stop to economic activities. For some, the COVID is also an opportunity for us to understand and rethink about the environment. For example, Indonesia facing on environmental challenges, such as air pollution and water pollution. According to Jakarta and climate agency for the pollution issues; 70% come from transportation 9 - 14% come from heater and electric generator 8% come from industries 8% come from domestic activities While the COVID-19 is tragically affecting people’s health, livelihoods, it has also had a positive impact on our environment in just few month. Minimal activities resulted in the short term in cleaner air, reduced carbon emissions and less noise. However, let think about waste management. The coronavirus pandemic has brought an increase in use of plastic, the main component in PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) and other personal protection gear. Where are all this plastic going to? Do we have capacity to recycle this new trash? As ecosystem, if you see everyone and everything as a whole thing, everything is connected. To bring natural system into balance, a new economy that is sustainable and respects the limits of natural resources and the functions of ecosystems is fundamental. COVID-19 is an inhibitor, they slow down entire ecosystem. There are four major dimensions of ecosystem; resources ecosystem, social, technology, and waste and pollutant dimension. What does COVID-19 has effected the most is social, technology, and waste and pollutant dimension. COVID-19 pandemic has control our activities. We saw that people were changing their lifestyle and, technology is a part of it movement. We see the whole shifting on ecosystem. What we see that a lot of changed going on. The point that how we going to adapt to that point of view? In long-term, normally, the environment can be healed by itself. Therefore, what can government do in this situation? It may be useful to think about “work from home” in order to reduce the pollution from car. Network connectivity should be covered in all area. Beyond that, youth, women and corporate should be allowed to get involve in the decision making process. We need to educate, understand and work together to sustain the whole ecosystem. 

If not us, who else?

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On Tuesday, July 7, 2020 "From Crisis to Next Normal: The rapid-shifting media consumption" - now that the world has reached a new normal in some aspects, It’s clear that this “new normal” of rapidly-shifting media consumption has changed how agencies and marketers are thinking about advertising. Social media remains a priority for consumers; how do you go to market with a new set of consumer insights.

Panel Discussion

From Crisis to Next Normal - The rapid-shifting media consumption

Panel Speakers: 

1. Samuel Too from Malaysia Business Development and Marketeer

2. Pongpiti Phasukyud from Thailand Founder of Ad Addict Thailand

3. Ye Myat Min from Myanmar Founder and CEO of Nexlabs and Forbes 30 Under 30

Panel Conclusions:

How the media consumption is changing in the lockdown period?

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic quarantines, media consumption has seen a massive increase. Social media has now become mainstream media where people consume news and information. During three months lock down in Malaysia, people tends to create more short video content on Tiktok. Actually, most of the Gen Z generation are consuming more online content that before the COVID-19 pandemic. Millennials have started consuming more content across several media types including online video, online movie (Netflix), online news and online meeting.

Furthermore, the lockdown also accelerates the media shift in Thailand to entertainment consumption at home especially the voice content – podcast, and the e-marketplace. Moreover, e-commerce and digital technology are trends that entrepreneurs definitely should be considerate since these will become the new normal, and these customer behavior will still remain even after COVID-19 period. The advertising agency and marketer need to understand this changed.

In Myanmar, all of trend already happened before COVID-19 outbreak as Myanmar is mainly focus on the young generation market, and even broaden of internet usage with the demographic group. This target group grew up with digital and technology. What we have seen during pandemic is that Tiktok become number 1 media platform, taking over Facebook especially in the rural area. Moreover, during COVID-19 restrictions, in Yangon and urban area, the demand of food delivery has increased rapidly which is slightly different before.

As an interesting point, all speaker drew attention to consumption of social media and the online media platforms of TikTok which is a particular favorite in Thailand, Malaysia and Myanmar, or even in Southeast Asia.

How to prepare the post COVID-19 performance marketing strategy?

Malaysia

The government in Malaysia try to push going towards the cashless society. E-wallets are no longer just a convenience, but a crucial part of the "new normal" in Malaysian dairy life. It is important for the businesses to understand customer behavior and to adopt fast in the cashless society and the digital economy.

Thailand

Entrepreneurs, advertising agency and marketer must shift from the offline to the online world to meet the new normal of consumer behaviour. They also need to expand their service coverage and improve their communication strategies, as well as learning to use new social media technologies to support the business growth. The four main communication strategies should be adapted to attack the customers;

1. Creating new experiences: People will forget what they see, what they hear, but will not forget what they feel;

2. Brand should be sincere with customer;

3. Strong brand purpose;

4. Be prepare and be ready for crisis situation.

Myanmar

Online content has become increasingly important as the COVID-19 situation has escalated. Marketer need to focus on the audio and video consumption, with the right time consumption and right media platform. Therefore, there are no exact strategy, marketer need to understand customer behavior according to the demographic, think about how the brand is perceive in the market, keep your brand communication as it authentic and simple, and moreover, keep in mind of level of social responsibility.

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On Tuesday, July 14, 2020 
"From Crisis to Next Normal: Future of Work, Are you Ready to Play in the Next Normal" -these sessions will explore ideas and the needed skills of workers for ASEAN youths to survive in this fast-changing period, and also talk about skills development with the requirement that the role of learning systems and education institutions is created layers of opportunity for young people to learn relevant skills. Is the pandemic could forever change the way we work?

Panel Discussion

For further information, please email us at academy@c-asean.org