Private sector joins hands with universities to build Deep Tech innovators

U.REKA project, under the cooperation between Digital Ventures Co Ltd, Microsoft (Thailand) Co Ltds, and the Knowledge Exchange for Innovation jointly organized  U.REKA Open House & Bootcamp,

inviting executives from Thailand’s leading technology companies to share and discuss ideas in coping with the impact of technologies on several industries, and update each other of the latest technological trends and 6 types of Deep Technology (Deep Tech).

The project is the first-ever collaboration between universities and private sectors in an effort to promote the innovation development using Deep Technology.

Under the U.REKA project, they will join hands to build new generation innovators who can invent new ideas that meet business needs and promote Thailand’s competitive advantages of Thailand in the digital era.

Mr. Orapong Thien-Ngern, the Chairman of Digital Ventures, said ‘The mission of U.REKA project is to build the ecosystem that link industries and education institutes together, so that educational institutes can develop innovations and solutions from deep technologies that better meet business needs and can even develop into actual products.

The survey of IMD World Competitiveness Centre in 2017 cited that Thailand’s competitiveness is ranked No.27 in the world, while the digital capability of Thai is ranked No.41 from the 63 countries. But in 2018, the competitiveness of Thailand has fallen to the world’s No.30 and is at risk to fall further if we can not make any significant changes in line with the global trend. “This means that Thailand will have no significant impact to the global economy in a not-so-distant future from now.”

Since U.REKA project began to accept applications, there were 63 developer teams from educational institutes in Thailand and abroad, including leading institutes from United States, United Kingdom and China joining in. Of these, 32 teams have been chosen to join in the Ideation Bootcamp activities. In this first year, our requirement focuses on innovation development that can meet the needs of three industries: retail, tourism and financial services which are three key industries that have essential roles on the country’s economy. The team whose ideas and concepts have been chosen, they would enter to Incubation stage and will get financial support worth 200,000 baht to be a initial fund to start their project within 3 months. After that, they chosen team will get further investment budget worth between 3-6 million baht. If the service can really respond to the business needs, they will get as much as 10 million baht as investment budget,” said Mr. Orapong.

The business partners of U.REKA project comprise of Digital Ventures Co Ltd, Ananda Development PLC, technology company Microsoft (Thailand) Co Ltd, legal service Baker & McKenzie, educational institute Knowledge Exchange (KX) as well as engineering departments from leading universities including Chulalongkorn University, Kasetsart University, King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology,  King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, Thammasat University and Chiang Mai University.