A Bt800-million campaign sees the launch of Nescafe Blend and Brew, Nescafe Red Cup and Nescafe Ready-to-Drink. The launch was held at CentralWorld.

A compact Speedlite external flash was also introduced.

Warin Tantipongpanich, vice president in Thailand, said: “Canon is committed to the development of new technologies for cameras and lenses to fulfil the needs of professional and amateur users throughout the ages.

“The EOS R System can redefine photographic limits to convey the user’s creativity in conditions not possible before. We also keep in mind the notions of ‘fast, comfortable, high image quality’ which are the basic concept of EOS.”

The EOS R is equipped with a 35mm, 30.3-megapixel CMOS image sensor and the 54mm-diameter RF mount to pair with the new RF series of lenses through 12-pin contact points for enhanced communication between the lens and camera.

When using RF mount adapter, the EOS R is compatible with all existing EF and EF-S lenses.

To mark its anniversary and success in Thailand, GuavaPass has organised a six-week “Be Like Tuck” Challenge for current clients and is offering exciting birthday specials for new Thai customers.

Now the largest healthy living community in Asia and the Middle East, GuavaPass is a subscription-based service offering flexible fitness memberships starting from Bt1,390. It provides access to over 100,000 premium classes every day in Bangkok, at over 100 fitness studios, with workouts like HIIT, boxing, pilates, yoga and more.

“The past three years have been an incredible journey for us in Bangkok. Since last year we’ve seen a whopping 62 per cent growth and this year itself we’ve seen an average growth of 25 per cent month on month growth! It’s amazing to see a business grow from zero and thrive in a market where it’s clear that the fitness trend is on the rise.

“GuavaPass has clearly established itself as an authority in the fitness and wellness space and I have plenty of fun facts to share. For instance, we’ve noticed that the top favourite workouts for Thai customers are yoga, pilates and HIIT and the most popular fitness day is Tuesday at 6pm to be absolutely precise,” said Benyapa Uafua, General Manager of GuavaPass.

The company said that to celebrate turning three, it has decided to show off the one thing that is most valuable, its members! The “Be Like Tuck” Challenge is unlike anything you’ve seen before from a fitness provider: it is a celebration of a top user. Instead of influencers, celebrities or high-flying athletes, this challenge is for real people, based on real members, and their stories. In Bangkok, it’s Tuck Thanchanok Arnurakprakarn. Since joining GuavaPass three years ago, she has booked, has sweated through and has completed over 710 classes! She will be featured as the face of this six-week, total body, transformation challenge.

GuavaPass is now encouraging all of their Bangkok members to “Be Like Tuck”. The challenge will take members on a six-week fitness journey from October 16 to November 26. It is open to everyone no matter what their fitness level is. All they need to be is a GuavaPass member.

The goal is simple: they need to book and complete three classes at different studios per week, and they will receive an exciting prize weekly from sponsored partners like Chope, Shopee and PurelyB, plus perks from GuavaPass. Top customers from each market globally will stand a chance to win the grand prize, which will include USD 50 (approximately THB 1,619) worth of GuavaPass credits and other exciting perks.

“You don’t have to wait for 2019 to kick-start your journey to achieving your health and fitness goals, just register for the ‘Be Like Tuck’ Challenge by the 16th and get started now. Plus, all of those prizes will surely keep you incentivised to stick with it. We’re rewarding you for getting fit and sticking to your goals,” added Benyapa.

Under the campaign entitled “Im Thong Im Jai with FamilyMart”, customers can donate Bt1 to charity for each purchase from the J menu from a FamilyMart store.

Junichi Yamashita, chairman of Central FamilyMart, said: “FamilyMart is committed to operate our business together with social activities continuously. For this year J Festival, we would like to invite our clients to fulfil an opportunity and dream of rural kids, through the support of the charity campaign, to develop their leadership skills. The campaign, which is enhanced in cooperation with Raks Thai Foundation, is to deliver bakery-making equipment to Lumpleechanupatum School in Ayutthaya province for occupational training.

“With the experience of FamilyMart, together with suppliers who specialise in foods, we believe in our ability to transfer knowledge to students who will be able to use standard equipment for bakery-making practically in their real life.

“The campaign will improve the quality of life and occupational skills of Thai youths, and they will be able to make a secure business for themselves in the future. It will also help sustain the society and community in the long term,” said Yamashita.

Ruedee Euachongprasit, vice president for marketing, said that FamilyMart intends to let individual customers get involved in doing good. They can give an opportunity to children by donating Bt1 from any purchase from the J menu at FamilyMart.

“This year, we also provide more than 300 different items of J menu [items] for our diversified customers. They include Fresh Cooked Recipe, Hokkien Noodle, Kang Som Soup, Klua Kling Rice, Cabbage Soup, Authentic Hong Kong Foods, Mushroom Buns, as well as other ready-to-eat meals, such as Fried Tofu, Hong Kong Noodle, Nam Prik Num (Northern Thai Green Chilli Dip), Onigiri, and Larb J (Spicy Vegetarian). Caffee Arigato will be available on shelf with the offering of J products that are made from soybean, including Iced Matcha Latte, Iced Latte, and Iced Espresso, etc.”

Ruedee added: “We expect that both Thai and Chinese people travelling to Thailand during the ‘Golden Week’ period will be interested in buying J foods quite actively. We also expect our sales to increase by 30 per cent during the J Festival period.”

Under the campaign, customers will enjoy two benefits of merit making. They will not only avoid eating meat for the whole of October by purchasing J menu items at FamilyMart, but also participate in the charity campaign with a donation of money to support skill and leadership development for kids and youths.

In addition, for any Bt40 purchase, customer will be eligible for the redemption of selected products at a special price. The “Im Thong Im Jai with FamilyMart” campaign will be hosted around the clock from Thursday until October 24, this year, at all branches of FamilyMart throughout the Kingdom.

The conclusion of the 20-year agreement on Thursday in Hanoi, in the presence of BGRIM Chairman Harald Link, has solidified the viability of the 257 MW PV scheme in the Republic’s south central coast.

“The [agreement] has secured the future for the Phu Yen project which will help drive our income generation and capacity equity growth,” said BGRIM President Preeyanart Soontornwata.

When it starts commercial operation in June next year, Phu Yen will enhance BGRIM’s 2019 revenue by 15-20 per cent and contribute to the company’s target to increase it installed capacity to 3,100 MW in 2022.

The sales of electricity to EVN is at 9.35 US cents/KWh (Bt507) for 20 years with the commercial operation date (COD) set on June 30, 2019.

The ground-mounted PV solar farm in Phu Yen is one of the larger systems of its kind in the Socialist Republic and its output will be fed to EVN’s national grid.

SET-listed BGRIM, through subsidiary B Grimm Renewable Power 2 Co, earlier this year acquired an 80 per cent stake in Phu Yen TTP Joint Stock Company.

BGRIM is actively pursuing power ventures in Vietnam with current combined generation equity at 677 MW.

Phu Yen is one of the large scale projects approved by Ministry of Industry and Trade of Vietnam in line with the republic’s policy to promote environmentally-friendly energy over the next two decades.

At present, BGRIM operates a total of 33 power plants, 15 of which are of co-generation, 15 solar, two hydro-power and a diesel-fuelled, with a combined generating capacity of 2,220 MW.

The global technology giant’s rotating chairman, Eric Xu, told an audience that the company will mainly focus on five core areas – investing in AI research, building a full-stack AI portfolio, developing an open ecosystem and talent, strengthening the existing portfolio and driving operational efficiency.

“Strategically, we will continue to invest in basic research and talent development, build a full-stack, all-scenario AI portfolio, and foster an open global ecosystem,” he said at the opening of the three-day event.

Xu said the company would continue to improve internal management and efficiency through AI.

“We will develop fundamental capabilities for data and power-efficient (ie, less data, computing and power needed), secure and trusted, automated machine learning in computer vision, natural language processing, decision and inference,” he said.

Xu said its full-stack AI portfolio would deliver abundant and affordable computing power, provide an efficient and easy-to-use AI platform with full-pipeline services, and make the portfolio adaptive to all scenarios including cloud, edge and device.

“We will collaborate widely with global academia, industries, and partners. And we will make sure to bring an AI mindset and techniques into existing products and solutions to create greater value and enhance competitive strengths,” he said.

Xu added the company would apply AI to massive volumes of routine business activities for better efficiency and quality in order to improve the functionality of its technology.

“Our full-stack portfolio includes chips, chip enablement, a training and inference framework and application enablement,” he said.

The strategy is designed to provide powerful support for Huawei Cloud EI and HiAI. Backed by its AI portfolio, Huawei Cloud EI will be able to deliver a full-stack portfolio for enterprise and government customers. HiAI will provide a full-stack portfolio for smart devices.

In September 2017, the company released Huawei Cloud EI, an AI service platform for enterprises and governments. In April this year, the company launched HiAI, its AI engine for smart devices.

Xu said the company would in the telecom sector adopt SoftCOM AI to make the network more efficient. In the consumer market, HiAI will infuse intelligence into consumer devices, making them smarter than ever. Its portfolio will also include an AI acceleration card, AI server, AI appliances and many other products.

“Full stack means that Huawei is able to provide AI application developers with unparalleled computing power and a strong application development platform. We are working towards making AI more inclusive – making it affordable, effective and reliable for all,” he said.

According to Xu, Huawei’s AI strategy is inspired by 10 changes that the company expects to see in the AI industry. Those changes are: an increase in the speed of training; availability and cost of computing power; AI deployment; efficiency and security of algorithms; AI automation; practical application of AI; model updates; synergy between AI and other technologies; platform support; and talent availability.

“At present, AI projects are always labour-intensive, especially during the data labelling process. This requires so much labour,” said Xu. “Moving forward, we must greatly increase AI automation to achieve automated or semi-automated operations, especially during processes like data labelling, data collection, feature extraction, model design and training.

“In the future, we need to promote greater synergy between AI and other technologies, such as cloud, IoT, edge computing, blockchain, big data and databases. This is the only way to fully unleash the value of AI.”

Xu stressed the need for a one-stop platform that provides the necessary automation tools, making it easier and faster to develop AI applications. When this platform is in place, AI will become a basic skill shared by all application developers, he said.

He considered the lack of AI talent, especially data scientists, as a major obstacle to the progress of AI.

“Addressing this challenge requires an AI mindset. That means providing intelligent, automated and easy-to-use AI platforms, tools, services, and training and education programmes to foster a huge number of data science engineers,” he said.

At the event, Xu announced the release of the company’s Ascend series of AI chips – the world’s first AI IP and chip series designed for a full range of scenarios.

“Now we are in the second phase, where new technology and society are colliding. From a tech perspective, more and more issues are emerging as AI technology continues to advance. If we look at things from an application perspective, the value of AI is seeing greater recognition as it comes into wider use,” he said.

“We need to focus on areas where AI can create the most value, not on problems that AI isn’t equipped to solve. Finding the right problem is more important than devising a novel solution.”

Sarayuth Saengchan, senior executive vice president/Finance Group, said “to achieve that status, the company needs to become an organisation with sustainable growth through a transformation of its work processes.”

“Before leveraging technology to support our work, we started by adjusting the work processes in the areas of PPP (Plants, Purchasing, Payment) in our subsidiaries to retain the same high standards. We then adapted our technological systems to support the work and to raise the efficiency of technology usage. ”

He said that the company has used tools and technologies such as design thinking, mobile devices, cloud, automation, Internet of Things (IoT) and QR code in three main parts of its working process – supply chain management, plant maintenance, and inventory management, all of which are significant in the way the business is run.

The group’s digital transformation has reaped rewards as it was named the 2018 “Digital Transformer of the Year” by IDC at the IDC DX Awards 2018 Thailand in September this year.

Other winners included SCB Abacus Company Limited, CIMB Thai, Bank of Ayudhya, Advanced Info Service and Ananda Development, recognised as the winners for Digital Disruptor, Omni Experience Innovator, Information Visionary, Talent Accelerator, and Operating Model Master, respectively.

IDC is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets.

According to IDC, the Mitr Phol Group began its digital transformation journey in September 2015 by combining its fully integrated agriculture business model with digital technologies. Digital technologies such as mobile devices, cloud, big data analytics, automation, and IoT sensors have been introduced in its three main areas: supply chain management, plant maintenance, and inventory management, covering 33 plants across 18 companies within the group.

Sarayuth said that in the supply chain management, the ease of procurement comes from its adoption of the UNSPSC [United Nations Standard Products and Services Code] structure, which provides information on common materials. Purchasing information is shared between users, purchasers and vendors via the Mitr Phol procurement system.

The UNSPSC is an open, global, multi-sector standard for efficient, accurate classification of products and services.

“The plant maintenance allows us to be able to use spare parts from a stock pooling strategy with the machines’ status updated via IoT sensors. Real time operation is reported via QR code and tablet,” he added.

In inventory management, the total cost has been reduced through the UNSPSC structure and stock pooling strategy. The process time is also reduced by real-time processing via a mobile channel.

“To support participatory development, we encourage our employees to share their ideas for initiating and developing systems that truly meet the demand of the users. This makes them feel that they are not users but owners, and encourages pride in being part of the development of the systems,” Sarayuth said.

The company said it had formed a joint venture for the investment deal with Chalong Phuket Pet Hospital, which has operated in Chalong Beach on the resort island for more than 16 years.

Thonglor Pet Hospital owns 51 per cent of the venture, Thonglor Chalong Phuket Pet Hospital, with the rest is held by Chalong Phuket Pet Hospital.

Dr Kitika Chaisupatanakul, chief executive of Thonglor Pet Hospital, said the company currently operates owned 11 branches of Thonglor Pet Hospital, and that the additional 12th branch is its first joint venture.

“With the joint venture, we (Thonglor Pet Hospital) will jointly provide support on internal management as well as the use of an IT system in enhancing the database and medical records of all pets being treated at the hospital,” she said.

“About Bt10 million of an investment budget will be allocated to the facelift and improvement of the existing pet hospital in Phuket.”

Kitika said the company will use its first joint venture in Phuket as a pilot model for other possible joint ventures to enhance pet hospitals in remote provinces in the future.

Kitika said that Thonglor Pet Hospital will also invest about Bt200 million in the next two years by opening four new owned pet hospitals in the next two years (from 2019), of which three will be in Bangkok and one in Rayong.

She said the pet market in Thailand is estimated to see growth of 10 per cent over last year, to about Bt32.2 billion. Pet healthcare accounts about 32 per cent (Bt10.2 billion) of the market, while 45 per cent (Bt14.6 billion) is for pet foods, and 23 per cent (Bt7.4 billion) for pet products. Pet foods, in particular, have seen the highest growth, at 20 per cent a year.

“We are under discussions to explore taking our pet hospitals outside Thailand to potential markets overseas,” said Kitika.

Founded in 1994, Thonglor Pet Hospital opened its first facility in Sukhumvit Road 55 (Soi Thonglor). It is the first pet hospital in Thailand that provides medical care services and treatment for pets 24 hours a day. The pet hospital posted Bt560 million in total revenue in the first nine months of this year and aims to reach up to Bt750 million for the whole period of this year. About Bt860 million in revenue is targeted for 2019.

Dr Anucha Chaisomboonsuk, manager of Chalong Phuket Pet Hospital, said that the hospital has been providing medical treatments for pets in Phuket for more than 16 years.

“It is time for our pet hospital to have greater demand for new management know-how and technology to be enhanced in doing business,” Anucha said.

“The partnership with Thonglor Pet Hospital, which is one of the leading pet hospitals in Southeast Asia, will ensure that we provide better quality services to our pet-loving customers.”