Tech Generations
Tech Generations
Tech Generations
How it started
Humble beginnings and a confluence of circumstances, events and countries.. This is a tale of a random humble seller of Chromebooks, unknowing of their worth, a spare room ,and multiple friends and programs all with similar goals of creating a STEM/tech oasis' in their relative respective deserts.
See the full story via the slideshow below
Munly Leong
Executive Director, Software Engineer. Teacher (when time permits)
The Chromebooks
In nearly a decade of living in SE Asia, I could never find a place to buy relatively recent but inexpensive Chromebooks as backup laptops especially for simple notes i.e. conference notetaking, emails and was still inexpensive enough to not be too financially painful to accidentally leave behind or break. Older and weaker (but ironically far more power hungry) machines like Thinkpads can be found but nothing that hits the sleek smaller form factors, power efficiency and capabilities of relatively recent Chromebooks in terms of their value. Randomly coming across a nondescript seller in Malaysia who didnt know their worth and who also sold out far faster than anticipated, I was able to get one for myself but what about others? did nobody realize the sheer need and potential impact these could have especially in low income countries? Calls were quickly made but even those in need could not make arrangements quickly to buy, lacked funding + "laptops have battery? wor. Can explode! Sorry cannot send lah" (actual Malaysian post office "manglish" response)
Tegular for profit business was the priority. Filed away for later . PS NOT the actual seller pictured! but something similar, far less glamorous in a rougher part of town
Cambodia (unplanned)
but life changing...
Due to the difficulty of short term rental that's rather unique in Malaysia and a friend that just happened to be in Cambodia at the time, a hasty trip was made into the poorest country I've been to yet. At 1/10th the GDP of neighboring Malaysia and Thailand (themselves often considered third world), the difference and the level of poverty was imediately apparent. "Tuk tuk" drivers similar to the one pictured often sat around all day idle and for as little as one ride / $3 a day. Many were happy to follow me around practically all day in hopes of getting one and possibly their only customer that day. Yet the level of English was far better than neighboring Thailand and clearly many could far more with themselves but earned so little that it would take years if not decades to even save for a regularly priced laptop much less a Chromebook. If they were to own one digital device, it would be a phone only.. to receive ride requests. But a phone isn't very productive for creating anything other than video content...
Forced to Over-rent
because Internet!
As Cambodia was significantly more undeveloped than their neighbors, internet speed was unworkable in most places and too little bandwidth was spread between too many apartments. As little as 10 to at most 50mbit maximum. Very few can afford their own internet connection and if someone does get it, they are paying the full cost of wiring and installation (spread out over the course of a year) upfront in most cases. Effectively it was still cheaper to rent a place 2-3x the size of what I needed just for the rare unicorn of workable internet that "wasn't shared too much" but what to do with the extra space...? oh hold on, there was that charity idea a few months back...
And yes, finally.. a real picture. This IS the room that was the final push to finally start it all.
Confluence
Everything always comes together eventually..
Over the years of living in SE Asia, the stars aligned to connect me with programs and projects already either doing good work or moving in this direction.
From the well established and supported Coding Thailand (which has kids coding in English without speaking English!) to a friend of a friendals through happy coincidences where he now potentially has a space/land to set up a coding school after locals saw his own volunteering intiiative in the area and finally to the more recent discovery of RobotX in Siem Reap, all these projects had similar challenges and goals. It was clear that it would be a challenge for donors to care about things like small struggling coding schools in a third world locales they've never even heard of but large scale problems and systemic impactful solutions that could scale and help everyone are much easier to get behind and organize for.
Thus Tech Generations was finally given the "oomph" to be born!
About the Executive Director
Munly is a programmer and game developer at heart, former IT systems administrator and currently building multiple funds with the overarching goal of solving international investment between the US and the rest of the world with a core geoarbitrage bent.
Additionally he has worn marketing and business/founder/operator hats and also uniquely has worked on startup visas and tech immigration with multiple countries around the world. Once upon a time, he attempted a previous non profit to to map broadband quality around the world down to the street level and the lessons learned, non-profit sector knowledge gained from that effort has helped hit the ground running now with Tech Generations.
Tech Generations
A US 501(c)(3) non profit
EIN - 99-1242026
1001 S Main ST, STE 49
Kalispell , MT 59901