Doydoy: Light Toy, Strong Impacts
It looks like straw; however, it is basically just a toy; surprisingly, this toy can help alleviate diabetes, and expose kids to the world of Engineering. It is a plastic building block game known as Doydoy.
“Doydoy can cure people!” said Em Chanrithykol, a 21-year-old Cambodian adult who created Doydoy. Rithykol is currently a junior at the Institute of Foreign Languages, majoring in English-Language Education.
There was once that a father of his friend was diagnosed with diabetes. He was barely able to carry anything because his hands could no longer function properly. A doctor, hence, recommended him to have his body exercised with Doydoy.
“Amazing thing is that he started being healed. That made me feel very delighted,” said Chanrithykol.
Doydoy was firstly developed in mid-2016. It is a kind of building toy, which can be played either by kids or adults. Doydoy’s main part is basically a straw attached to the ABS plastic connector made from corn through 3D printing machine.
Doydoy is strong, light, and recyclable. Earlier in this year, it just earned Rithykol the first place at Cellcard Lab business idea competition. To date, it has been sold over 400 item-boxes, and partially distributed for free to some schools in rural part of the country.
The idea of initiating this toy was from Rithykol’s experience. The young creator of Doydoy credited his volunteer work for that success.
“Thanks to the time that I volunteered which was mostly involved with trips to provinces, helping kids, and donating study materials, which gave me the idea to create something useful and relevant to education,” he said.
“I came across a Facebook post [of an initiative] that was supported by USAID Cambodia called Think Global, Make Local Product. That was where everything really started.”
Think Global, Make Local Product is an entrepreneur training and competition which allows participants to turn their innovative idea into reality. Doydoy was one among the top three of the USAID-funded programme’s selection.
This plastic building block game was not mainly created to rehabilitate the paralyzed patients. The toy, instead, is intended to help trigger the curiosity and creativity among kids when they play with it. “It was really a good start for me to get into STEM,” said Rithykol holding Doydoy in his hand.
Doydoy, according to Chanrithykol, was created to expose kids in some remote schools, who have never played with this kind of building toy, to something related to Engineering.
It is also about offering a toy, which is affordable for kids to play with and supporting the nation at the same time as the toy is made in Cambodia.
Before there is a success, there count a number of failures. Chanrithykol indeed encountered challenges along the way with his Doydoy startup. “I’m new and young. I don’t know much about business, so it is really hard to get into the industry where most people don’t consider young people can do it”.
In addition to these challenges, this young entrepreneur also overcame with time availability, knowledge, experience, budget as well as a team to work on this project. Despite the multi-faceted difficulties to launch the project, this youngster motivated himself by believing that he could make it like other people do.
“I saw other people do it. I think I can do it as well. I always remind myself the first start of the excitement. People help me, cheer me up. I look for idea and remind myself I need to keep my state of mind healthy. I talk to different people with the same mindset before making decision.”
Chanrithykol defined his lifetime goal by making his parents proud and this country developed as his inspiration.
“Youth is really a fireball that pushes this country to go forward because we are young people who take action, understand, and keep updating the world. We all have huge potential. If you have any idea, that you think it would make an impact, just give it a try. Don’t quit too early,” he said.
There was once that a father of his friend was diagnosed with diabetes. He was barely able to carry anything because his hands could no longer function properly. A doctor, hence, recommended him to have his body exercised with Doydoy.
“Amazing thing is that he started being healed. That made me feel very delighted,” said Chanrithykol.
Doydoy was firstly developed in mid-2016. It is a kind of building toy, which can be played either by kids or adults. Doydoy’s main part is basically a straw attached to the ABS plastic connector made from corn through 3D printing machine.
Doydoy is strong, light, and recyclable. Earlier in this year, it just earned Rithykol the first place at Cellcard Lab business idea competition. To date, it has been sold over 400 item-boxes, and partially distributed for free to some schools in rural part of the country.
The idea of initiating this toy was from Rithykol’s experience. The young creator of Doydoy credited his volunteer work for that success.
“Thanks to the time that I volunteered which was mostly involved with trips to provinces, helping kids, and donating study materials, which gave me the idea to create something useful and relevant to education,” he said.
“I came across a Facebook post [of an initiative] that was supported by USAID Cambodia called Think Global, Make Local Product. That was where everything really started.”
Think Global, Make Local Product is an entrepreneur training and competition which allows participants to turn their innovative idea into reality. Doydoy was one among the top three of the USAID-funded programme’s selection.
This plastic building block game was not mainly created to rehabilitate the paralyzed patients. The toy, instead, is intended to help trigger the curiosity and creativity among kids when they play with it. “It was really a good start for me to get into STEM,” said Rithykol holding Doydoy in his hand.
Doydoy, according to Chanrithykol, was created to expose kids in some remote schools, who have never played with this kind of building toy, to something related to Engineering.
It is also about offering a toy, which is affordable for kids to play with and supporting the nation at the same time as the toy is made in Cambodia.
Before there is a success, there count a number of failures. Chanrithykol indeed encountered challenges along the way with his Doydoy startup. “I’m new and young. I don’t know much about business, so it is really hard to get into the industry where most people don’t consider young people can do it”.
In addition to these challenges, this young entrepreneur also overcame with time availability, knowledge, experience, budget as well as a team to work on this project. Despite the multi-faceted difficulties to launch the project, this youngster motivated himself by believing that he could make it like other people do.
“I saw other people do it. I think I can do it as well. I always remind myself the first start of the excitement. People help me, cheer me up. I look for idea and remind myself I need to keep my state of mind healthy. I talk to different people with the same mindset before making decision.”
Chanrithykol defined his lifetime goal by making his parents proud and this country developed as his inspiration.
“Youth is really a fireball that pushes this country to go forward because we are young people who take action, understand, and keep updating the world. We all have huge potential. If you have any idea, that you think it would make an impact, just give it a try. Don’t quit too early,” he said.
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| Doydoy, a toy building game created by Em Chanrithykol. Photo: AOMPUL/Mech Sereyrath |
by Mech Sereyrath
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