Sarah Jane Maxted, executive ditecฌtor of MIT Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Programme (MIT REAP), said at the MIT Global Startup Workshop 2018, that the three elements of innovation ecosystem include sysyem, strategy and stakeholders, while the innovation ecosystem stakeholders model consists of risk captial, entrepreneur, corporate, govenrment, and university.

Edward Rubesch, programme director of the Innovation Driven Entrepreneurship Center (IDE), under the University of Thai Chamber of Commerce, said at the same event that as the stakeholder in innovation ecosystem, the UTCC has partnered with MIT REAP, authorised by Massachusetts Institutes of Technology (MIT), to operate the IDE Centre with the goal of creating new entrepreneurs with exponential growth in global scale.

The joint project has been nuturing entrepreneurs nationwide and filtering through innovationdriven entrepreneurship. The IDE Centre is established to create an ecosystem amongst entrepreneurs, driven by innovations in an “IDE Ecosystem”.

The core mechanism consists of five partners: educational sector, public sector, private sectors, entrepreneurs cluster, corporate enterprises and financial institutes. Altogether, the ecosystem will be wheeled up as a key driver of Thailand’s economics.

“Invention in the developing world is the huge job opportunity of invention and be more broadly apply to creat value in the new ways. We have the huge opporotunities solving some of the problems around that,” said Rubesch.

The centre is buliding a Thailand IDE ecosystem with much activities, such as IDE Boot Camps and IDE Acceleratrp in conjunction with partฌners throughout Thailand.

“Things we think are important for the IDE Network are system, culture, and community, which to reach outside of Bangkok,” said Rubesch.

Punarj Chairatana, director of the National Innovation Agency (Public Organization), said that role of NIA is to make creativity into value reality through three ‘E’ mission, entreฌprenuership, enterprising, and equity

“National innovaton system for NIA is around these, which is to encourage people to be innovaiton entreprenuers; to help promote the innovation development in the enterprises; and to build the inclusiveness and sustainability,” said Punarj.

He added that, the innovation system should be the datadriven innoฌvation and areabased innovation where collaborations are needed from all stakeholders including educationฌal institutions (for paragigm innovation); government (for public sector innovation), firms (for business innovation), society (for social innovation), and world and environment (for green innovation).

“For the past two years, the government has developed several innoฌvation ecosystems through startup initiatives. We have already established Startup Thailand as an open platform ecosystem for statups, servicebased startup to deeptechnology based startups,” said Punarj.

MIT Global Startup Workshop 2018 is a collaboration between Sasin School of Management and MIT Association of Thailand in corporation with MIT Global Startup Workshop (MIT GSW). It aims to encourage Thai innovationdriven entreprenuers to learn and discuss with MIT technical and entrepreneurial expertise as well as investors, government officials, academics, and corporate leader from around the world.

The government has assigned State Railway of Thailand to undertake the public private partnership project with a distance of 220 kilometres. The government plans to invest a maximum of Bt 119 billion in the project with the rest to be financed by private companies winning the bid, Natthaporn Jatusripitak, adviser to the PM’s Office minister said after the Cabinet meeting yesterday.

The government has estimated an economic return of Bt 700 billion in the next 100 years. They include saving in energy cost, easing of traffic jam, use of U-Tapao airport, job creations and commercial land development generated from the project, he said.

Businesses in Thailand are highly optimistic about their future trade prospects, a report by HSBC said.

The survey of 200 firms found them optimistic about the growth in demand for trade finance and its accessibility.

Their largest concern is exchange rate volatility and its impact on meeting their trade finance needs, according to |the report, entitled “Navigator: Now, Next and How for Business”.

Some 92 per cent of respondents said they are optimistic about their international business prospects and project an increase in the volume of trade over the next 12 months.

The World Bank’s Thailand office yesterday revealed the results of its survey which suggests high discrimination against the group in workplaces in the country.

According to responses, discrimination and exclusion of LGBTI people persist despite Thailand’s progressive status regarding LGBTI inclusion, said the report entitled “ Economic Inclusion of LGBTI Groups in Thailand,” released by the World Bank.

Discrimination practices are prevalent when LGBTI people look for a job, access education and health care services, buy or rent properties, and seek legal protection, according to report.

Few LGBTI and non-LGBTI people surveyed are aware of the laws prohibiting anti-LGBTI discrimination. 51 per cent of LGBTI respondents and 69 per cent of non-LGBTI respondents say they are not aware of any such laws.

“I’ m not surprised with the finding of the survey, as the LGBTI children are treated badly in their families and are bullied at schools,” said Commissioner Angkhana Neelapaijit, National Human Rights Commission of Thailand.

Among LGBTI respondents, transgender people report the most frequent and severe discrimination and exclusion in society. Lesbians report worse outcomes than gay men.

The same pattern emerges when trying to access government services, education and training, life or health insurance, and financial products as well as renting property, according the report.

More than one-third of non-LGBTI survey respondents find it acceptable for employers to discriminate against LGBTI individuals. Almost half found it reasonable for LGBTI people to experience some form of discrimination when seeking government services.

The World Bank proposes developing and implement public campaigns to promote awareness, establishing a high-level government commitment to LGBTI inclusion, and affirming equal rights for all.

Ulrich Zachau, director of Thailand, Malaysia, and Regional Partnerships of World Bank, said that the survey is the first step and the World bank is now working with government agencies and the priv    ate sector to promote economic inclusion of the LGBTI.

The World Bank also suggests that Thailand implement equality and non-discrimination in employment and occupation law, establishing effective monitoring mechanism, promoting the role of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and encouraging social dialogue between different groups.

At the same time, the bank wants Thailand to adopt a national same-sex partnerships law, fully integrating SOGI in the Gender Equality Act of 2015, explicitly including lesbians and bisexual and transgender women in all efforts, and strengthening and enforcing legal protection against all forms of gender-based violence.

Angkhana agreed with World bank’s suggestions by saying that the current Gender Equality Act of 2015 has limitation and it should be amended. The current law allows too much scope for discrimination practices, she argued and pointed out that the second paragraph of the section 17 of the Gender Equality Act should be deleted.

The second paragraph allow actions executed in line with religion principle, and national securities are not considered to be discrimination against gender.