Kris Supavatanakul on LinkedIn: Happy to announce that FINNOMENA has established a new advisory board… (2024)

Thailand's startup ecosystem fell to 54th globally, and Bangkok slipped to 4th behind Kuala Lumpur in SEA, according to StartupBlink's Global Startup Ecosystem Index 2024. No surprises.Issue playbook that has hindered tech companies in Thailand for over a decade:1/ Funding challenges (no Financial VCs)2/ Corporate Innovation capabilities (all the banks just do well)3/ Lack of IPO exits (getting our first tech IPO in 2024)4/ Talented workforce5/ Confusing politics and regulation (e.g. cannabis legality)Traditional non-tech businesses thrive in Thailand, but tech companies have not yet achieved similar success.Global Startup Ecosystem Report 2024 (by Startup Blink): https://lnkd.in/gGuR6VAs

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American banks have AI, European banks have Green Finance, and Thai Banks grow on the power of superstition. Well done, KASIKORNBANK.52 million Thais believe in superstition. Businesses related to amulets and talismans generate over $1.2 billion in annual revenue. Faith-based tourism, also known as "Mutelu," contributes around THB 10 billion to Thailand's economy each year, accounting for nearly 1% of the country's total tourism income.Forget about tech, beliefs are the "next big thing." The debit cards are designed to be attractive and are believed to bring good luck to the cardholders in aspects such as career, finances, and love. Kbank is bringing disruption to the banking sector in this "Muketing" year. Source: 1/ Kbank's Card: https://lnkd.in/gE6AvMA92/ Mutelu's Market Sizing: https://lnkd.in/gwCryPfi3/ Mutelu Population Coverage: https://lnkd.in/g9fcFxbk

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"My first instinct is they would say, 'Replace all the employees but not me,'" former director of MIT's Computer Science and AI Lab Anant Agarwal told the newspaper. "But I thought more deeply and would say 80 percent of the work that a CEO does can be replaced by AI."

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"While AI will affect all SDGs, experts we surveyed believe that AI has a particularly high potential to make a difference for five: Good Health and Well-Being (SDG 3), Quality Education (SDG 4), Climate Action (SDG 13), Affordable and Clean Energy (SDG 7), and Sustainable Cities and Communities (SDG 11)."Full Report and Source: https://lnkd.in/gRN-zmn9

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From Stanford's AI Index 2024 Report, Thais rank the highest on two statements "I trust AI to not discriminate or show bias towards any group of people" and "Products and services using AI make me excited."The optimism expressed by Thais is interesting as we have a new Ministry (DES) accelerating the national AI strategy until 2027. But the scale of recent data breaches by the public sector and corporations should be addressed first.The excitement of AI should be balanced with basic cybersecurity with enforceable AI laws and regulations. This includes cleaning up the 106 million visitors to Thailand in 2021, the personal data of 55 million Thais put up for sale on the dark web in 2023, and 20 million Thai seniors leaked from the Department of Older Persons (DOP).Stanford AI Full Report: https://lnkd.in/gi_BNUBRThailand National AI strategy and action plan (2022 – 2027): https://lnkd.in/gzaDfpQ5

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"Delta, Gucci, Volkswagen,ExxonMobil, Disney, easyJet and Nestlé are among the major corporations to have purchased millions of carbon credits from climate friendly projects that are “likely junk” or worthless when it comes to offsetting their greenhouse gas emissions, according to a classification system developed by Corporate Accountability, a non-profit, transnational corporate watchdog."

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I'm excited to share that my confidential project at SCBX is now public, though some details remain under wraps! A huge thank you to my friends at Fireblocks, Circle, and the Solana Foundation for their commitment through the regulatory sandbox trials. Thank you to SCBX for continuously supporting our work to embed blockchain and stablecoin into the bank's infrastructure, culture, and operations.Building this from scratch into a successful pilot with clear benefits for our customers was very rewarding.Good old times at SCB 10X.This project wouldn't be successful without awesome ex-bosses: Mukaya (Tai) Panich, Kaweepol Panpheng, Tanwa Arp*rnthip, and Pailin (Pie) Vichakul and the management team at SCBX.- Paragraph excerpts - "She expects to start with payments: SCB has a pilot in the sandbox of its regulator, Bank of Thailand, to use Fireblocks’ infrastructure to enable blockchain-based remittances via Solana or other layer-1 blockchains. She hopes this might be deployed live this year, perhaps as early as June, using Circle’s USDC stablecoin as the medium of exchange."“It’s instant settlement, and unlike correspondent banking, you don’t need any pre-funding,” she said. Moreover, SCB doesn’t need to rely on a critical mass of other commercial banks to use this. “We can transact with fintechs, payment aggregators, and other partners,” Panich said."

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"She attributed this prediction to the “huge costs” associated with verifying data between disparate systems — a problem that blockchain was intentionally designed to solve. Johnson further pointed out that financial institutions and stakeholders still need to verify data between external parties once data is reconciled in-house. In the case of blockchain, she stated, “there’s only one source of truth.”

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World Economic Forum alongside Schwab Foundation released a 2024 report covering the State of Social Enterprise in every country.The report suggests there are 120,000+ social enterprises in Thailand. As Cheewid is part of Thailand's Social Enterprise Association, the group has been struggling to push the membership count in the low hundreds. Our directory is still in the early thousand but a 100K count is extremely distant. There seems to be a huge definition misalignment in what constitutes a social enterprise.

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