How PlikThai empowers communities to crowdsource solutions

We received some 285 submissions that we whittled down to 30 projects for the final award, Bt1 million shared equally among 10 projects.
But PlikThai is also part of a bigger push to change how people perceive corporate social responsibility (CSR). Last year, DTAC conducted focus groups on the issues of good governance, corruption and CSR. We spoke to various age groups in Bangkok and upcountry. And the results were sobering.
Most of the focus group participants said a good company is one that is good to them: fair prices, good service, no bad surprises. Issues of good governance or corruption are mostly dismissed by consumers as being “none of their business”.
We wanted to conduct a project that could engage a wider audience, not just thought leaders on good governance, and in which everyone could participate. We also wanted it to use digital technology so that it would reflect DTAC's belief that mobile connectivity can empower societies. That’s how PlikThai came about.
We first conducted a pilot in March 2017 by partnering with the Thai Fund Foundation. We publicised the campaign through the foundation and some of our own contacts in order to measure the project’s potential in rural communities. I was surprised by the interest it generated. Twenty-two projects were submitted in two weeks.
As part of the pilot, we awarded Bt50,000 to a female prison in Chiang Mai. I visited and was very impressed by the depth of the wardens’ engagement. The prison is very clean; the staff are very positive and committed to improving their courses. A lot of prisons offer some kind of education, but this one wanted to use neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and yoga to offer something radically different.
It was just one example of how creative and active some people are. Now that we’ve received hundreds more projects, what amazes me is how highly aware some people are of the societal issues around them and that they are ready to invest time in sharing and growing their ideas.
All kinds of people wrote in, from folks who just wanted to complain about garbage in their neighbourhood to social workers with backgrounds in non-governmental organisations. One of my favourites submissions was for a chatbot or call centre to accommodate more people who need mental counselling. Depression is a very big problem. There are some 40,000 callers every year to the existing hotlines but they can only accommodate about half of that. 
Another great project was from villagers in Dansai, Loei, who discovered a way to build water pumps for Bt5,000 apiece instead of Bt80,000. But they needed more funds to equip all 60 households in their community. We also received a fantastic submission from students in Grade 11 in Buriram. They were trained by Chulalongkorn University students on using a small solar cell, so they brought this equipment to the local communities around them and taught citizens how to use the cell for pumps and lighting. They’re one of our 30 finalists as they would now like to scale their idea.
After having awarded 10 grants worth Bt100,000 each, PlikThai’s next phase will be crowdsourcing. There are two components to this. On the one hand, DTAC has the ability to connect people and, on the other, we are working with meefund for the platform. They are one of the first crowdfunding platforms in Thailand and their focus is on social enterprises and SMEs.
The idea is for the platform to be autonomous: put up an idea, get funded, execute. We want to shift people’s perception from asking for resources to being active citizens that can do something together for their own community. You can’t just propose ideas and ask for corporations to implement it. 
We need very active people who can be ready to learn and work with DTAC and social development organisations to drive their projects to success. My advice to get funded? Be creative, independent and focus on the long-term.

Rachaya Kulnapongse is AVP, sustainability, at DTAC.