In a press release issued by the company on Thursday, Tanin Buranamanit Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of CP All, the founder of 7-Eleven in Thailand, said that CP All has initiated the project to encourage the public to reduce and stop plastic bags since 2007.

The firm said it is determined to nourish sustainable environment via the company’s various programs, in accordance with CP ALL’s brand purpose “giving and sharing opportunities for all”.

Tanin said: “We use this month to announce our mission to reduce and stop plastic bags in 7-Eleven stores nationwide. We urge all Thais to simply stop using one plastic bag per day, everyday. Doing so would help mitigate global warming. CP All had received the cooperation from the consumers and tourists using 7-Eleven services in the efforts. They recognized the negative impacts of plastic bags on the globe.

“We are planning to express our gratitude toward our customers who refuse plastic bags by awarding them with points for the 7 Value Card. 7-Eleven stores nationwide will give 10 points to customers who use 7 Value Card and refuse plastic bags. CP All also has other similar programs, such as the ‘say no to plastic bags’ and the ‘using cloth bags and saying no to plastic bags’.”

The company recently extended the plastic bag reduction initiatives to universities, hospitals, and natural tourist attractions, deeming that these places are important to the push for Thailand’s tourism industry’s growth.

To achieve that goal while conserving the environment in these natural tourist attractions, the company had introduced the “preserving the Andaman Sea, reducing plastic bags” activity. The event was a joint effort among CP Group, the Department of Environmental Quality Promotion, the Tourism Authority of Thailand, the Green World Foundation, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources, national parks on several islands, various local communities, and the public.

These activities had been held in Lanta, Yao Noi-Yao Yai, Lipe, Phi Phi, Tao, and Samet islands. CP All and its alliances in each island have organised these campaigns to encourage youths, tourists and members of the public to reduce and abolish plastic bags. It is also one of the initiative’s objectives to instil the new behaviour that caters to the sustainable conservative tourism.

“The company invited all people to reduce and stop plastic bags through four campaigns in 7-Eleven stores in the participating islands. They are stopping the use of the small plastic bags except for hot food; abolishing plastic cap seals for water bottles; replacing plastic packs for straws with paper packs; and installing bins for waste separation in all 7-Eleven stores, in order to manage garbage from the upstream for the community. We have also established communication plans to promote the movement to reduce and abolish the use of plastic bags in all forms”, stated Tanin.

In a press release issued on Thursday, the company said it expects sales orders will increase steadily between the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019 due to the high season in the EU, USA, Australia and New Zealand.

The company said its strategy is to focus on premium-segment lenses with high margins e.g. “Zenith Iden” – the superior progressive lens designed for the easiest adaption for complicated prescription, and “Bluloc” – the lens material series which helps filter out 95 per cent of harmful blue-light.

TOG USA’s performance has demonstrated a very high growth potential, the company said. TOG USA sees an increase in sales order from its local customers especially in value-added product category namely high-index lenses, high-impact-resistant lenses, photochromic lenses as well as Bluloc lenses. The company continues to expand its customer base from more than 10 key customers currently and is expected to break even by the end of 2019.

The firsts shipment of “Zenith Iden” at the beginning of October 2018 has received incredibly positive feedbacks from domestic customers, the company said. By the first half of 2019, the company plans to expand this product to other countries in Asia-Pacific regions e.g. Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, etc.

Torn Pracharktam, Managing Director of Thai Optical Group Public Company Limited (TOG), revealed the company’s third quarter revenue of Bt434.26 million, decreased by 8.63 per cent compared to that of the same period last year. Net profit is Bt13.07 million, with 4.28 per cent margin, decreased by 72.51 per cent. Net profit decrease was significantly caused by the decreasing sales in the value-added segment.

They also hope to further develop the core technology to create something akin to LinkedIn as a professional network platform for Thailand.

Digital Ventures chief executive officer Orapong Thien-Ngern yesterday joined representatives of eight leading universities, executives of top companies and senior officials from the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society in launching the collaborative effort on academic document verification. The services are expected to start in January.

Ministry of Digital Economy and Society permanent secretary Ajarin Pattanapanchai said that the so-called B.VER (Blockchain Solution for Academic Document Verification) is expected to create transparency and reduce the incidence of fraud regarding the issuing of transcripts.

Orapong said the B.VER would lead to cost reductions for every party – the universities, students and employers. Currently, employers find it costly and time consuming to verify educational qualifications submitted by students seeking jobs. Students also often have to go back to their universities to get new copies of their transcripts issued to replace lost documents for job applications.

Orapong cited the experience of King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi having to process about 37,000 requests for transcripts each year and Mahidol University, which processes some 5,000 requests a year.

Orapong is upbeat that the collaboration will lead to something bigger. “We want to deepen and widen blockchain technology application and it is a new thing we need to learn more about,” he said, referring to a recently introduced blockchain-based application for the Siam Cement Group (SCG) to help manage its supply chain.. The app was jointly launched by SCG and Digital Ventures.

In the near future, the platform – which draws on Big Data and artificial intelligence – will be extended as a channel for recommending suitable job positions, benefiting both applicants and recruiters.

LinkedIn has 500 million professionals as members and has annual revenue of US$5 billion, said Orapong. “We could create a professional network platform for Thailand, close in scope to LinkedIn, a global professional platform,” he said.

Orapong said that, regarding the privacy and security of information in the transcripts, when the transcripts are registered in the blockchain, Digital Ventures would get only a fingerprint format of the documents – with no information visible, said.

“Or, in other words, we could only tell whether that document is genuine or forged, and in this way we ensure the privacy and security of the owner of the document,” he said.

Digital Ventures’ head of project delivery, Chirapol Mathawaphan, said that Digital Ventures had chosen the Ethereum platform, a public blockchain with features capable of permanent data protection in the format of a decentralised ledger of information. Users can access data for verification purposes but cannot edit any information.

At present, Ethereum has created more than 25,000 nodes worldwide, offering higher data security and making it the best fit for platform development, data storage, and verification, Chirapol said.

The B.VER working process is divided into two parts. First, original transcripts are uploaded into the platform by universities. Afterwards, it will encrypt the document and store data on blockchain in a fingerprint format, which is unique for each document. As a result, firms can instantly verify academic documents by uploading the document into the platform.

The platform will then decrypt the documents by comparing the fingerprint format with original documents stored on the blockchain, with results instantly displayed to identify valid or fake documents. Storage and verification of documents using blockchain will ensure data security and accuracy.

In the near future, students and others can directly request or share academic documents to employers via this platform.

The academic institutions involved in the B.VER are Kasetsart University, Khon Kaen University, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, Mahidol University, Rangsit University, Srinakharinwirot University, and Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration of Chulalongkorn University. The companies involved include Thai Oil PCL, Bangchak Corporation PCL, PTT Exploration and Production PCL (PTTEP), PTT Global Chemical PCL (PTTGC), Golden Land Property Development PCL, and IRPC PCL.

State-run educational institutions may not be able to join in the B.VER in the near future as the government needs to amend many laws and regulations to accommodate it, Ajarin said.

 Facebook Dating is available to users of the social network who are aged at least 18.

Nathan Sharp, product manager of Facebook Dating and product lead for people discovery, said that this feature is a result of the company’s mission to make Facebook the single best place to start a relationship online.

“Facebook Dating is a dedicated feature within the Facebook app, specially designed to give people full control of their experience looking for a meaningful relationship”, he said.

 “People will be able to match with others based on their preferences and interests, through a dedicated dating profile inside the main Facebook app.

“Dating profile associates with a Facebook profile, including just a name and age, and is separated from the user’s Facebook profile.”

Sharp said that the dating service is designed for meaningful relationships rather than short-term unions and the feature is an opt-in that allows people to decide to use it, rather than it being by default.

Moreover, it is in the Facebook app – not a separate app – but only non-friends (on Facebook) and friends of friends can see a user’s dating profile, which is separate profile from the Facebook profile.

Location selection is required since privacy is a key concern.

“Facebook Dating’s messenger is of a different type to Facebook Messenger. It allows only text and emoji icon to be sent.

“Photos, files, and links cannot be sent via the dating messenger,” said Sharp.

He added that Facebook Dating is the new place to first establish a relationship. It was launched first in Colombia.

The feature will also facilitate people to have dating experiences through Event & Group as well.

In Thailand, around 52 million people use Facebook every month, and these people are potential users of the dating services.

“Facebook Discovery is designed to be the very best place for people meet the first time while Facebook Dating is designed to be the very best place for people’s relationships,” Sharp said.

In the United States, one-third of marriages started as relationships online.