The Liger Charitable Foundation DBA Liger Leadership Academy Foundation

Liger is committed to developing the future leaders of Cambodia and is addressing the universal need for better leaders who are creative and critical thinkers. There is a big need for leadership development especially with the younger generations in developing countries.

In general, the world tends to concentrate on the short term. However, Liger takes a long-term view on solving global problems by making a long-term investment to develop the future leaders of Cambodia who are committed to creating change in their country.

By prioritizing the education of children and preparing them for the real world, Liger's goal is to assist in the development of Cambodia by amplifying the human potential of its youth - molding well-rounded, educated and empathetic graduates who have the ability and commitment to transform their country. Every student is expected to change Cambodia.

Liger's innovative project based learning model enables young leaders to excel beyond traditional subjects; provides them frequent opportunities to solve complex, real-world problems; and equips them with the capacity to lead Cambodia's future social and economic development. 80% of the project-based learning courses focus on issues in Cambodia with the end result of the course often being action to improve existing issues in Cambodian society.

Liger does not have a standardized curriculum. Although it provides students with a core curriculum, learning experiences are tailored to each individual student with a focus on STEM, entrepreneurship, and leadership.

While traditional teaching methods provide instruction through a teacher-defined set of criteria and a set curriculum with standardized testing and results, the Liger model is focused learning the essential core subjects while also gaining real-world skills, thereby giving the students a more authentic and meaningful learning experience that can be used on campus and beyond.

The staff at Liger Leadership Academy are global experts in their respective fields. Our Country Director has been working in a range of sectors in Cambodia since 2006. He comes to Liger Leadership Academy with a strong background in entrepreneurship and non-profit leadership having founded two successful business in London as well as serving as the co-founder and trustee of a noted Cambodian children's charity.

Our Director of Education is an innovative, creative educator with nearly 40 years of experience as a teacher, principal, technology director, school director and designer of pioneering learning models. The teaching staff is rounded out by industry experts who bring their own expertise in a diverse array of subject areas.

As part of their education Liger Leadership Academy, our students have authored books, starred in videos, written (and were awarded) international grants, planned summits and more. Many of our student projects or experiences had a lasting impact on Cambodia. Some of these successes are listed below.

Technovation

Technovation is a global competition that offers girls around the world the opportunity to learn the necessary skills to become tech entrepreneurs and leaders. Girls ages 10 to 18 learn to identify a problem in their community and create a mobile app solution to address that problem, and then learn how to communicate these ideas and translate them into a fully launched business.

In our first year of entering the competition, one Liger team made it to the global semi-finals, representing the Asian region. In subsequent years, our teams continued to present strong placement in regional and global semifinals. In 2017, the Cambodia Identity Product team, qualified for and presented at the World Pitch Summit in San Francisco. They were awarded a scholarship which will enable them to advance their STEM skills and knowledge in the future.

Cambodia Economy Reference Book

While researching a separate project, Liger students realized that there was limited information about the Cambodian economy, in particular for students and laypeople. Having identified this need, students acted on their own incentive and undertook the daunting task of creating a reference book from scratch.

Over the course of a year, a group of ten Liger students (aged 12 and 13) collaborated to produce a professional, yet readable, volume outlining detailed information covering the six primary sectors of the Cambodian economy. The students researched the book independently and were responsible for all supporting information, photographs, and infographics. Working with local facilitators and global digital mentors, the students then wrote and published the book in side-by-side English and Khmer (Cambodian) language.

The book was very well received. Not only is it carried in top-tier commercial bookstores in Cambodia, but the Minister of Education was so impressed that he both wrote the book's introduction personally and directed it to be distributed to approximately 500 Cambodian schools nationwide. Based on this success, and the ongoing evolution of the Cambodian economy, another group of Liger students is planning a Volume 2 for the school year 2018/2019.

Other success stories can be found at: http://www.ligeracademy.org/impact/success-stories/