Suphattraland is working with the Drug Discovery and Development Centre and partners to create a research and development centre, the Suphattraland Excellent Agriculture Research Centre Hub (SEARCH), along with the Thailand Equatorial Fruit and Herbal Park.

The centre will collect fruits and herbs from countries that share Thailand’s equatorial latitude, said Suwat Faprathanchai, managing director of Suphattraland. Those countries are Vietnam, the Philippines, India, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Chad, Niger, Mali, Mauritania and Mexico.

Srung Smanmoo, deputy director of R&D and innovative product development for Drug Discovery and Development Centre at Thammasat University, said SEARCH is a collaboration between the university’s centre and others partners including Suphattraland.

Also involved is the National Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology or Biotec. It will also provide R&D services and set up a health and anti-ageing innovative product centre, as well as social enterprises and a company CSR centre, along with a digital marketing channel to support the private sector and market.

SEARCH will function as an R&D and innovation network centred in the nation’s eastern region. It would build on current knowledge and know-how, while linking a network of R&D researchers in the region and nationwide to support both the government and private sectors.

“I think that SEARCH will create an R&D and innovation ecosystem between researchers, government and business in Rayong province and nationwide,” said Srung.

“As result, it will support business sustainability and improve

the quality of life for people in Rayong and the Eastern region of the country.

Meanwhile, SEARCH will also promote smart agricultural farming,” he added.

Chotchai Buadit, general manager at Suphattraland, noted SEARCH will have a role in R&D and manufacturing innovative processed fruit and herbal products focused on good health and anti-ageing.

But its work with go beyond that to also develop an innovative products distribution channel for outstanding local products through an innovative products shop or outlet for customers and visitors seeking products to improve their health and ageing.

In the first step, the shop or outlet would provide eight innovative products including Durian Mineral Facial Spray, an anti-acne and scar removal spray. Chotchai said it was the world’s first deodoriser and disinfectant spray to offer the benefit of killing germs and with the power to destroy bad odours.

Another product is fizzy tablets that ensures each bite of a diner’s fruits and vegetables are safe from pesticides and food-borne pathogens.

Another product is an anti-wrinkle and fine-lines removal serum from a silk protein- hyaluronic acid hybrid. The hybrid serum is the world’s first to combine the power of moisture-locking silk protein with hyaluronic acid to boost hydration as well as the minimise the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles. The serum is best for visibly improving skin’s elasticity and tone, said Chotchai.

This powerful serum is formulated with the highest level of silk protein, hyaluronic acid and vitamin A.

A clothes-cooling spray with the ability to cool for more than two hours will also be available, as will a fruit infused honey. Also, a cooling spray suitable for those suffering from osteoarthritis will be for sale. Products that block sugar absorption and diet products will also be available.

“We offer innovative processed durian and mangosteen in both tapioca and alginate pearls. Our edible tapioca and alginate pearls are formulated with different source of soluble fibres, which exhibit sugar-absorption blocking and satiety properties,” said Chotchai.

“People who want to control their weight and diet would still enjoy the richness of the taste of durian and mangosteen while eating durian and mangosteen tapioca or alginate pearls.”

Suphattraland is offering free visits to its fruit garden during December 3-5 for those interested in smart agricultural gardening.

DISTRUST AMONG candidates led the Democrat Party to opt for blockchain technology last month when it was choosing its new leader. It was the first time digital technology had been utilised in Thai politics.

More than 120,000 votes were cast using the Thai-developed Zcoin blockchain during the November 1-9 vote.

Zcoin is an open-source, decentralised private cryptocurrency system featuring anonymity for its users with data stored on the blockchain.

Poramin Insom, founder and lead developer of Zcoin, helped Democrats tap the potential of this new technology, which also offers greater transparency and other benefits.

According to Poramin, candidates for the party’s leadership and its internal election commission were concerned about how to store the voting data securely, fearing there could be fraud and unfairness in the election.

Storage of data on blockchain prevents unauthorised changes, since any alteration requires a consensus among majority stakeholders.

Though Zcoin blockchain ensures voters’ anonymity, the party chose an option that allowed results to be cross-checked, Poramin told The Nation Weekend.

It was Thailand’s first large-scale electronic voting with two sets of data involved: identification documents and vote tallies, he explained.

The data were encrypted and stored on an IPFS (InterPlanetary File System), a decentralised and distributed file-storage system.

The IPFS hashes were then stored on the Zcoin blockchain, which acted as a decentralised immutable database that could be audited by the party’s election commission and its three leadership candidates.

The voting data could only be decrypted if all five groups involved – three representatives of each candidate, the election commission and the Democrat Party itself – were present and in agreement.

It was a tight race for the two top candidates, former premier Abhisit Vejjajiva and his challenger Warong Dechgitvigrom, with Abhisit winning 67,505 votes and Warong close behind with 57,689 votes.

“The unique circumstances of this election made Zcoin’s blockchain a good fit to record votes and sets the stage for future deployment of e-voting systems in the country,” Poramin said.

However, he said, preparations for the use of blockchain should have been made much earlier in order to ensure a smoother process. After all, technical errors would have prompted sceptics to suspect cheating and would have given the new technology a bad name.

In his view, Thailand has the potential to utilise this technology in a national election and it would be possible to do so in the next few years with growing demand from voters and candidates.

He said election organisers could develop electronic-voting machines and use blockchain to store the data.

“I believe we’ve achieved a huge milestone in our country’s political history and hope other political parties or even governments, not just in Thailand but elsewhere in the region, can look to using blockchain technology in enabling large scale e-voting,” Poramin said.

Meanwhile, new political players such as the Moderate Party and Future Forward Party are also keen to use new technology.

Moderate Party founder Chumphon Krootkaew said party members use computers and smartphones as their main communication tools.

“So most of the time, we are working online. We discuss and hold meetings on the Internet,” Chumphon said. “Everyone can basically work from home. And this saves us so much time and money because we don’t need a bricks-and-mortar office.”

The party stores membership data and other documents mainly in soft files, he said. Although sometimes some of the data have to be collected traditionally in paper form, they are recorded digitally afterwards, he explained.

Though the Moderate Party has yet to obtain legal standing, Chumphon said that once it is officially registered, it will launch a website and make it a hub for administrative work and communication.

The Future Forward Party relies extensively on cloud computing in its operations.

Party registrar Klaikong Vaidhyakarn said administrative affairs, internal communication and emails, as well as the donation system, are all connected through its official website, futureforwardparty.org. Party members work and coordinate via the website, and even the decision-making process within the party is done online.

About 40 per cent of the members also use this system to vote for branch leaders and executives, Klaikong said.

The system is trustworthy, with a verification protocol that matches the standards of online banking applications.

Like the Moderate Party, Klaikong said his party allowed members and staff to work online.

This allowed better participation as well as flexibility since they don’t have to be at the office and could work anywhere, he added.