My good friend, Zulfia, and I participated in an Innovation Challenge, submitting a business plan for a mobile app. We wanted to address the challenge of designing an innovative outlet (mobile and web application) aimed at college students to increase awareness and interest in broadcast and media career development. We came up with, The Bridge, a mobile and web application that serves as a one-stop shop for students and organizations in the broadcast industry to network, seek or post employments, and build broadcast-related skills.

The Bridge won honorable mention and the audience choice award for the Innovation Challenge, and later 1st Place for Best Creative Project at the 2017 Ohio University StudentExpo.

I’m one of those fortunate Cambodians with a scholarship to pursue a doctoral degree at a US-based university. Part of this graduate assistantship scholarship, I was assigned to work with my inspiring academic advisor, Professor Don Flournoy. He has built a large and amazing body of work, from teaching, research, media practicing, and theatrical performance to advancing the space frontiers.

His biggest professional endeavor is related to Space-Based Solar Energy. It’s so cool. I’m glad I had an opportunity to document his work and life in this video piece I produced for a production class. My project partner and I spent three months planning, shooting, interviewing, and editing this 12-minute documentary.

In Summer 2015, I received my Master’s degree and was admitted to the PhD program in the following Fall. I went to Cambodia for the whole Summer and worked with Chip Mong, a Cambodian company headquartered in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, that engages in a portfolio of diversified businesses from the supply of building materials to the manufacturing and distribution of consumer and beverage products.

I was working with the Communication and Marketing teams. One of the highlights was that I ran two workshops on “Convergence Marketing,” training the company’s marketing and sale departments of 500 plus staff members.

The U.S. Embassy Phnom Penh put then seven of us, Cambodian bloggers, on a helicopter to visit the U.S. Mercy Ship and the crews whose mission was to help Cambodian people living in Kampong Som and Koh Kong (two South-Western provinces of the kingdom). Our articles about this one-day trip can be found here, here and here. We took photos, asked the crew members questions, and interviewed the Cambodian beneficiaries of the Mercy Ship project.This arrangement by the embassy was quite unprecedented. Seven Cambodian bloggers were invited to tour USNS Mercy, a hospital ship from San Diego, California. This kind of visit had long been organized for mainstream journalists, but at this point, bloggers had the honor!

Supporting U.S. disaster relief and humanitarian operations worldwide, the USNS Mercy hospital ship, along with its crew of U.S. Navy and Army personnel from Australia, Canada, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Peru, and the Philippines, and a host of NGO’s from throughout the land, come to Cambodia to help poor Cambodians who do not have access to proper medical care in remote provinces.