Mekong Business Challenge is an entrepreneurship competition for university students promoting entrepreneurship and business incubation in the Mekong region. This year’s competition was scheduled to be held in Cambodia on 14th March but given the current global pandemic situation, it was held virtually for the first time in the 14 years of its founding. RTC first participated in the Mekong Business Challenge in 2016 and has seen repeated success since the beginning, including winning the top prize in 2018.

A team of three RTC students took part in the competition this year supervised by Mr. Gagan Mongar (Faculty of Business Studies). Third-year students, Sangay Kunchok pursuing BBA (General Management), Ugyen Chozom pursuing BCom (Finance) and Sunny Rasaily pursuing BBA (Marketing) designed an audio guide tour app that displays all the cultural sites of Bhutan in multiple languages and has been aptly named as “Thunder Guide” to align with the ‘Land of the Thunder Dragon’. The first prototype application contains four languages, namely German, French, Vietnamese, and Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), and currently covers 9 different cultural sites at Paro, Thimphu, and Punakha.

“It came to us as a disappointment and also as an opportunity. The disappointment was that we could not go to Cambodia for the competition, where we were hoping to meet the international Judges and fellow competitors which would have served as a huge gain of experience and social networking. The opportunity was the competition being an online PPT voice over, it had eliminated a lot of pressure, we could work on the presentation till we got the desired outcome”, said Sunny. 

The team came 2nd in the competition winning a cash prize of $3,000 USD, which they want to invest in launching the app in the market. A total of 11 university teams competed in the region’s business model competition including teams from Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. “I am so happy that our one year’s worth of hard work is finally rewarded. Without the endless support from Mr. Gagan and the college, this wouldn’t have been possible. We would also like to thank Oscar Gue, who was an exchange student at RTC for equally contributing to the business project throughout his stay at the College”, said Ugyen.

“I thank my college for giving me the opportunity to learn outside the context of our books and classroom. I want to reassure and say that I am continuing to work on this business model to launch it as soon as our economy and tourism sector is back on”, said Sangay.

A group of ten RTC students was accompanied by Mr. Tshewang Tandin (President of RTC), Lopen Karma Tshewang (Senior Lecturer of Dzongkha), and Mr. Bahadur Lepcha (Storekeeper) on a visit to Japan for the 9th Annual SEISA Cultural Exchange Programme from 27th January- 4th February 2020.

The long-standing partnership between SEISA and RTC provides intercultural exchange opportunities for students, faculty, and staff within the two institutions. The exchange programme also aims at promoting understanding and building a strong friendship between the two countries and between SEISA and Royal Thimphu College. According to the theme of the programme, titled ‘Inclusiveness’, the participants visited historic temples and various schools, including the SEISA high schools located in Odawara and Oiso which provide facilities for students with disabilities. 

The group also visited some notable places in Japan such as the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, the National Astronomy Observatory, and Odawara castle, followed by a courtesy call with the Vice Mayor of Odawara city. The programme helped the participants experience a wide variety of enriching activities, such as learning about the advancement of technology, and standards of living in Japan, and trying Japanese cuisine and traditional clothing. It also provided a platform for the RTC students to share their own culture and traditions with their Japanese counterparts. 

SEISA and RTC are looking forward to the 10th year of their partnership.

Phuntshok Dechen Yangchen is a third-year student studying Bachelor of Commerce, majoring in Finance at Royal Thimphu College. She is also the co-founder of Guram, a candy making business that Phuntshok and two of her friends who are RTC graduates, Depshika Chhetri and Tashi Dargay, started in December 2017. Guram was started with the vision and mission to reduce dependency on imports of candies and increase self-sufficiency. The initial success of the business began with pitching their idea at the Mekong Business Challenge in 2018, where they were the runners up. Their goal after the competition was to keep making product improvements.

This year, during the Druk Tshongrig Gatoen, Bhutan’s first festival to promote and celebrate social entrepreneurship, intelligent businesses, and young entrepreneurs organized by Loden Foundation, Phuntshok applied for the Student Entrepreneurship award. After getting through the preliminary round, she was chosen to give a brief presentation about her business idea and share her journey as a student entrepreneur at the Thimphu Clock Tower in front of a large audience on October 19, 2019. There were three other students from different colleges pitching their business ideas.

In Phuntshok’s words, “This pitch was one of the most exciting yet one of the most nerve wracking experiences that I ever had. It was a great honor to represent RTC and my business in this platform.”

During the award ceremony on October 20 2019 at the Royal University of Bhutan, Phuntshok was accompanied by her mentor, Mr. Madhav Verma (Business Studies Programme Leader, RTC) where she won the Best Student Entrepreneur of the year.

“To be honest, I did not expect to win but there was a little glimmer of hope within me. I was beyond happy. It was an unexplainable feeling, I felt that all my hard work finally paid off,” she said.

She won a prize of Nu. 50,000, which she plans to invest in her business and is looking forward to represent Bhutan at Global Student Entrepreneur Award in Cape Town, South Africa, supported by Global Student Entrepreneur Awards (GSEA) in March 2020.