A KidBright Workshop was organized for students and teachers in 10 schools for children with disabilities. The workshop, which was held from 18 to 21 November 2023 at Sirindhorn Science Home in Pathum Thani, guided participants in building embedded system projects based on the KidBright AI Platform. The workshop closing ceremony on 21 November was presided over by Dr. Patchralita Chatwalitpong, NSTDA Vice President for Science and Technology Human Resources Development.
KidBright is a coding learning tool developed by NECTEC-NSTDA. It is an open-source embedded programming platform that allows children to learn coding with a KidBright embedded board and coding commands in the KidBright Integrated Development Environment program, or KidBright IDE.
In 2018, NSTDA initiated a project to promote coding skills for children with disabilities. The pilot project was launched in 10 schools for children with disabilities already participating in the IT for the Disabled Project implemented by the Information Technology Foundation under the Initiative of HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn. From 2018 to 2020, KidBright boards and UtuNoi STATION packages were distributed to these schools and a series of workshops were organized for both students and teachers, providing training on how to program a KidBright board and create an embedded system project with the KidBright board. Knowledge on data science was added to the project activities in 2019 and 2020. These activities have empowered teachers and students to create innovative solutions to help people with disabilities. Many of these inventions were submitted to innovation contests and some have won awards.
In 2023, the project scope has been expanded to cover artificial intelligence (AI). The first workshop was organized on 4-7 July this year, equipping teachers and students with basic knowledge on AI technology. This follow-up workshop which was held from 18 to 21 November 2023 focused on the development of science projects using the KidBright AI Platform. This workshop was conducted by the Educational Technology Research Team, led by Dr. Saowaluck Kaewkamnerd.