What is SPARK
SPARK Accelerator supports high-potential Thai startups in early-stage through intensive mentoring sessions with regional and international experts to guide and improve startups’ capabilities, products and solutions to reach the global market’s needs.
Timeline
26 Feb. – 12 Mar. 2018
ONLINE APPLICATION
Submitting application will be closed at 23:59 on 12 Mar.
15 Mar. 2018
ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE QUALIFYING STARTUPS
Announcement of the qualifying startups for the interview stage
19 – 20 Mar. 2018
INTERVIEW
Interviewing the qualifying startups and selecting the most promising teams to be invited to SPARK’s pitching day
22 Mar. 2018
PITCHING DAY ANNOUNCEMENT
Announcement of the selected startups invited to join SPARK 2 pitching day
29 Mar. 2018
PITCHING DAY
Join our Pitching Day and compete to be a part of SPARK!
24 Apr. – 18 Jul. 2018
SPARK’s 12 WEEKS BOOT-CAMP
Accelerating startups with intensive lecturing classes, 1-on- 1 mentoring sessions, workshops and personal coaching
26 Jul. 2018
DEMO DAY
SPARK 2 Demo Day:
Selection of SPARK’s Ultimate Winning STARTUP
Aug. 2018
SPARK 2 WINNING STARTUP GOES GLOBAL
The winning startup in SPARK 2 will travel overseas to explore and experience a top global tech ecosystem
Mentors
Coaches
Speakers
Alumni
Testimonials
After we released our MVP to the market in January 2016, we were looking for an accelerator program that can provide:
– good comments and ideas from mentors with global perspectives to improve our product and market
– build strong relationship with VCs in Thailand and Asia Pacific
– build a relationship and gain support from government sector
Spark fulfilled all our needs. I think, if you are looking for a global accelerator program in Thailand, Spark is the one that you should attend!
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What you will get?
Toolbox for your future success
Lecturing sessions,1-on-1 mentoring sessions, Unique workshops, Pitching perfection and more
Strengthen your startup with global complimentary technology
Brought to you by our international mentors & experts
Personal coaching
Let our coaches guide you through the whole process and be part of your success
Fast track process for NIA grant application
Additional financial support from NIA up to 3MB with shorter processing time.
SPARK's Rewards
SPARK’s Ultimate Winner shall be entitled to receive one week (7-10 days) with:
- 5 days of international training in one of the leading multinational accelerators in Israel! Such as Google launchpad Tel Aviv and/or Barclays Accelerator; OR 5 days of international ecosystem exposure, including VCs, Tech Experts, Accelerators and more!
- 2 days Funding roadshow with leading VCs, Funds, Investors etc.
SPARK’s Monthly Winner will be fully sponsored to travel overseas and join Leading global startup events:
- RISE HK
- Innovfest Unbound
- Echelon Asia Summit
SPARK's Rewards
SPARK’s Ultimate Winner shall be entitled to receive one week (7-10 days) with:
- 5 days of international training in one of the leading multinational accelerators in Israel! Such as Google launchpad Tel Aviv and/or Barclays Accelerator; OR 5 days of international ecosystem exposure, including VCs, Tech Exeprts, Accelerators and more!
- 2 days Funding roadshow with leading VCs, Funds, Investors etc.
SPARK’s Monthly Winner will be fully sponsored to travel overseas and join Leading global startup events:
- RISE HK
- Innovfest Unbound
- Echelon Asia Summit
Powered by
In Collaboration with
Eitan Lavie – Investor, Legal and Global Networks, Chairman of AGW Group
Eitan is an investor and shareholder in various companies and startups from the pre-seed to IPO with focusing on innovative technology. In addition to investment and consulting to these companies while they grow, he’s also utilizing his vast network to advance these companies and strengthen their core marketing and sales in different sectors, such as Technology, Manufacturing and Production, Defense, etc.
Highly experienced in complicated ventures and investments, as entrepreneur, a lawyer or an investor both in Israel and overseas, mainly in the technology sector, mergers and acquisitions and joint ventures. As part of his international activity Eitan maintains a wide range of work relationships and cooperation with various organizations and companies worldwide
Within his scope of activities, Eitan established branches in New York, Paris, London, Tel-Aviv and Hong Kong.
Supachai Kid Parchariyanon – Founder, RISE – Corporate Innovation Accelerator
Dr. Supachai Kid Parchariyanon is serial entrepreneur, investor and innovation ecosystem builder. He started his first venture when he was 19 years old to develop mobile stock trading application for the first time for Stock Exchange of Thailand and now become #1 stock trading app in the country.
After graduating in medicine from Mahidol University, Bangkok, Dr. Kid pursued his study by completing Master of Biomedical Informatics from Oregon Health and Science University, USA while also working with the new venture MCFIVA – a marketing consultancy and advertising agency in 2011 serving Fortune 500 and publicly traded companies in the Thailand and the region. In 2013, MCFIVA jointed venture with NTT Docomo Group of companies – D2C Inc. to expand into Southeast Asia.
In 2017, he founded RISE – Corporate Innovation Accelerator aims to become innovation powerhouse for the country by accelerating large corporates to succeed in the faster future through co-creation with tech startups, universities’ professors and unique entrepreneurial programs. RISE is now running national and regional accelerator as well as having its own TV program to inspire people nationwide called “Startup Star Dara 4.0”
Dr. Kid is also President of Digital Advertising Association of Thailand (DAAT), a founding member of Thailand Software Export Promotion Agency (TSEP), Thai Fintech Association and fellow of a number of professional associations in the US and Asia.
Bryant Chou – CEO, VICE China
Bryant is an American-born Chinese living back in the motherland and focused on shaping contemporary youth culture across China. As CEO of YiShiYiSe/VICE China, Bryant works with a growing team of millennials to create premium content that pioneers growing trends in sports, fashion, art, gaming, and much more, but more specifically, defines China’s expanding cultural movement for domestic and global consumption. In addition, Bryant is a partner at VPG Asia, a syndicate investing and serving as a strategic JV partner for companies seeking to establish a presence in Asia. Bryant spent his formative years in corporate finance and as an investment banker in NYC, and has thus developed a liking for sports, meditation and drinking. He graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in Economics.
Takashi Sano – Venture Partner & Regional Manager, Global Brain
Global Brain (GB) is an international venture capital firm with US$500million under its management. GB invests startups of Series A and above in Japan, U.S., Asia and Israel with typical investment size of up to US$5 million. As one of the biggest and oldest independent venture capital firm in Japan, GB has more than 30 exits by IPO and M&A in its history out of around 100 investments. By leveraging our global reach and a broad network of Japan’s major corporations, we walk alongside with startups to grow together and strive to bring innovations to the industry and the society.
Takashi (or “Taka”) is Venture Partner and Regional Manager at Global Brain. He is looking after APAC region for investment and support startups, including PatSnap, intellectual property analytics platform for enterprise, Arcstone, IoT and big data platform for manufacturing andCoins.ph, next generation of financial service for unbanked and so on. Prior to joining GB, Takashi was managing smartphone peripheral business at Sony. He looked after whole supply chain, sales and marketing and P&L to maximise its business in APAC, Middle East and Africa. Takashi also worked for Sony as the role of technology investment and M&A, formulating joint and spin off venture.
Pachara Yongjiranon (Billy) –Managing Director, SpeakPro Training
I have experience in sales, recruitment and talent development. I have trained for many corporations but mainly financial services and technology. My passion is training people at all levels and I have coached top executives as well as operational staff.
I have professional experience with both Thai and multinational organizations in the recruitment, training, and on-line marketing industries. My functions cover across recruitment, CSR projects, employee relations, organizational development, and speech coaching.
Daniel J. West – Founder & CEO, Panalyt
Daniel has over20 years of global HR consulting and leadership experience at major global firms such as Morgan Stanley, Apple (Head of HR Japan, Australia and Global Sales) and Uber (Head of People, International), as well as numerous ultra-high-growth start-ups around the world. He has seen one consistent pain point for both HR and business leadership during these growth phases: access to meaningful People data, analytics and insights, which has led him to found Panalyt (www.panalyt.com).
Panalyt is a saas start-up that integrates data from any source, generates insights against both internal and industry benchmarks, and puts the resulting actionable people analytics directly in the hands of the business. Daniel has already been through the early stage funding process, with support from leading APAC VC Wavemaker and the founders of APAC ecommerce giants, Lazada and Acommerce, and is happy to share both his HR and founder insights with the SPARK community.
Bay McLaughlin – Co-Founder & COO of Brinc
Bay is a Co-Founder of Brinc, a global IoT accelerator, manufacturing studio, and online hardware community based in Hong Kong with offices in Shenzhen, Guangzhou, London, Barcelona, and Bahrain. Having spent half of his career in or founding startups, he now brings his experience and operations abilities to connect the dots from Asia to Silicon Valley for IoT companies from around the world. He currently holds equity positions in 32 companies in 12 countries, serves on the board of Soundbrenner and Brinc, and is a contributor for Forbes and a KOL for Huawei.
Bay has supported technology startups for the last decade. Over half of this time was spent at Apple as a founding team member of their global SMB channel and as the founder of their first Entrepreneurship Evangelism channel. To support startups at Apple, Bay partnered with the world’s best founders, venture capitalists, incubators and accelerators to identify and solve their most pressing strategic issues. His division at Apple has grossed more than $300M USD in sales and is still the best team globally in Apple SMB’s division. The other half of his career has been spent inside of or founding startups, two of which failed, one of which exited successfully.
Lindsey Higgs – Founder & Director, Sage + Spark
Lindsey is the founder and director of Sage + Spark, a creative engagement agency that helps individuals and organizations use creative approaches to enhance their face-to-face communication and drive change. From experiential learning through applied theatre to the development of interactive toolkits and innovative workshop and training approaches, Lindsey has worked around the world from Paris to Toronto and Bangkok to Dar Es Salaam with organizations including UNESCO, MTV EXIT, the International Organization for Migration, the World Bank Group and, most recently, with social change agency Love Frankie.
Nico Raess – Managing Director,FAT MANGO videos
Nico Raess is the managing director of Fat Mango Videos. A boutique video production company that focuses on creating unique, punchy creative videos for SME’s that aims at engaging and retaining their client’s target market.
He started the company in 2014 on the tropical island of Phuket, primarily focusing on creating travel and lifestyle videos for hospitality companies. From there he opened a second office in Bangkok and focuses on creating long lasting relationships with companies who are looking to make waves in their social media marketing campaigns.
Warot Wanakankowit – Founding Partner, Warot Business Consultant Ltd. and Wingman & Partners Ltd
Warot Wanakankowit is a founding Partner at Warot Business Consultant Ltd. and Wingman & Partners Ltd. He has substantial experience with taxation, corporate and commercial, foreign business law, labour and employment and merger and acquisition transactions. Warot has also taken director roles in various companies in order to help set up operations and manage those companies.
Prior to founding his own firms, Warot worked at Weerawong, Chinnavat & Peangpanor Ltd., one of leading law firms in Thailand. Before that he worked at KPMG Phoomchai Tax Ltd. as well as with PricewaterhouseCoopers Legal and Tax Consultants Ltd. in Thailand. Warot obtained an LL.B. degree from Thammasat University, and an LL.M. degree from King’s College University, in the UK.
Christopher Hall –Head of Health Solutions, Fitbit APAC
Christopher Hall is a creative business executive with a background in the consumer health, diagnostics & pharmaceutical sectors. He currently leads the healthcare B2B business for Fitbit Health Solutions in Asia Pacific. Prior to Fitbit, Christopher led Johnson & Johnson’s diagnostic franchise based in Singapore. Christopher has held various commercial leadership roles prior to his role at J&J.
Christopher’s career highlights include, developing the global OEM business for an European consumer health company, starting a profitable VC in China, and creating a global TED x event in Singapore.
Since 2016 Christopher has served as Co-Chair for Healthcare Committee at The American Chamber of Commerce in Singapore.Christopher is an American and has worked and lived in Europe, China, and 8 years now in Singapore.
Meg Y. Anderson – Sage + SPARK, comedian, actor, educator
Meg is an American expat and a recent transplant to Bangkok. She is a comedian with over 10 years experience in improv and stand-up comedy and 8 years experience as an educator. After being a main stage improviser with Jet City Improv in Seattle, she flew across the ocean to see the world. Meg has lived all over Asia and has taught individuals as young as 2 and as old as 82 from all walks of life. She has created creative comedy communities and/or performed in South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Australia, England and the USA.
Padmini Pandya – Organizational Psychologist & Corporate Strategist, Adobe
Padmini sits at the intersection of organisational psychology, business strategy and digital transformation.
She holds 4 degrees and marrying over a decade of experience as a corporate strategist, management consultant and entrepreneur with organizational behaviour, industrial psychology, corporate innovation, business development, M&A, organizational transformation, post-merger integration, change management and strategic expansion of MNCs.
She has spoken at SXSW and regularly speaks at regional conferences, professional events and universities regarding digital & organizational transformation, business strategy, talent development and org design.
In her free time she mentors start-ups in Singapore, works with Female Founders to promote female entrepreneurship and funding, is a Talent Trust charity advisor, a member of Singapore Women in Media, Marketing and Advertising (SWIMMA), Lean In Singapore | Women in Tech, INSEAD and Boston University alumni organizations and is on the board of Project Expedite Justice (PEJ), a non-profit that aides and educates human rights investigations globally.
Mohan Belani – Co-Founder & CEO, e27
Mohan Belani is the Co-founder and CEO of e27, a startup and tech ecosystem platform focused on help startup founders build and grow their companies. He believes that startups can make the world a better place, and in order for Southeast Asia’s tech ecosystem to be relevant, it needs to be driven by sustainable and impactful companies solving problems at scale. He enjoys working with Founders and helping them alleviate the challenges of building great companies specifically around the areas of talent, funding and market access.
Justin Nguyen – Operating Advisor, Monk’s Hill ventures
Justin is an entrepreneur, investor, and engineer who has played instrumental roles in four start-ups in Silicon Valley, Shanghai, and Vietnam. Most recently, he founded Asian-focused gaming company Aspect Gaming, where he raised more than $18 million in funding and lead it to become a leading supplier in the industry. Before that, Justin worked his way from engineering manager to China CEO of StarCite, which he helped transform from a dotcom consumer play into a thriving enterprise SaaS company, growing from zero to more than $50 million in revenue. Earlier in his career, Justin managed engineers at Silicon Gaming and served as the founding software engineer of Maximum Information, one of the earliest internet acquisitions of the era. Justin studied computer engineering at the California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo.
Surawat (Sam) Promyothin – Executive Director of BVC and CEO of STYLHUNT
Surawat (Sam) Promyotin is Executive Director of Bangkok Venture Club (BangkokVC) and CEO/Co-Founder of STYLHUNT. BangkokVC is the largest accredited angel investor group in Thailand, and STYLHUNT is a B2B e-commerce startup addressing social commerce unique to emerging and mobile-first markets. He graduated from UC Berkeley with a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and from Sasin Chulalongkorn Graduate Institute of Business Administration with an Executive MBA.
Steve Jernigan – Head of Finance, Hubba
Steve is currently the head of finance for Hubba, Thailand’s premier co-working and start-up ecosystem builder. In more than 15 years of capital markets and commercial real estate experience he has raised more than $10 billion of funds across debt, equity and hybrid instruments from both public and private offerings.
In addition to his responsibilities at Hubba Steve manages transaction financing and structuring for a U.S. based family office focused on commercial property development and management.
A graduate of The Pennsylvania State University with a B.S. in Finance and International Economics, Steve is passionate about developing capital markets and governance best practices in the emerging markets.
Alina Gratschner – Founding & Managing Partner Accelerate Korea
Alina is the Founding & Managing Partner of ‘Accelerate Korea’, and ’22 Centurion Ventures’, focusing on cross-border Acceleration and Venture Builder programs in partnership with public and private sectors.
Originally from Germany, Alina has lived and worked in Europe, North America, Middle East, Africa, and all across Asia. With her many years of experience in the tech and startup industries globally, she is passionate about contributing towards connecting and developing innovative ecosystems across continents.
Alina is also the Head of Hello Tomorrow Korea, forming part of a global non-profit initiative supporting the transformation of scientific inventions into impact-driven solutions.
Barak Sharabi – Chief Global Strategy, Infinity Technologies
A Strategic Tech Advisor, an investor, an ecosystem builder, a mentor in various accelerators and institutes, a tech regional expert with a wide network in the tech sector and an entrepreneur at heart.
Barak was born and raised in Tel Aviv, Israel, traveled throughout the world’s continents, holds 3 degrees in Law, Business and Diplomacy and Security.
Barak served in the Israeli Airforce and years later as the Head of the Economic and Trade Mission at the Israeli Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, covering Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia.
Prior to serving as an Israeli diplomat in South East Asia, Barak worked in various positions in the private sector, from strategic consultancy and investments in global markets, ICT and Medical technologies and IP, Antitrust and Commercial Agreements.
Barak has various interests from Innovation and Entrepreneurship to International Relations and Defence as well as extreme Sports
Ruby Chen – VCs expert
Ruby Chen is a Corporate Development professional with a proven track record in initiating, leading and executing corporate development processes (strategy, investments, M&As, PMIs and divestitures) at two of the largest high tech firms in Israel (Amdocs TASE: DOX and NICE Systems NASDAQ: NICE).
- Previously, Ruby was CEO at Lab One technology incubator (Later re-branded as TheTime), and was also an investment professional at Stage One Ventures as well as a strategic consulting team leader at Rotem Strategy (engagements including with Bezeq Telecom and Amiad Water Filtration).
Ronen Lago – Big Data, Cyber and IoT, CTO of Lockheed-Martin
Twenty years of expertise in advance intelligence Systems & cyber security as CTO and Head R&D of several companies, expertise in the field of advanced threat detection via big data analytics. Establishing and managing many innovative multidisciplinary development teams at Lockheed-Martin & Israeli Air Industry (IAI- ELTA), leading R&D teams developing system-on-chip (SoC) semiconductor at Sigma Designs (NASDAQ: SIGM). Expert in cyber security & Big Data Analysis focusing on critical infrastructure, Internet-of-Things (IoT), Network layers & SCADA communication
Reuven Aronashvili – Cyber Security Expert, CEO of Prosecs
Reuven had his B.Sc and M.Sc in computer science and math in Tel Aviv University, and graduated with honors. Reuven acquired his professional skills and deep passion, as a security expert, during his 7 year-military service in the Israeli Defense Force Infosec unit. Later, Reuven joined the business sector, and designed and developed quality security solutions mainly for large scale global concerns. Over the years, he conducted over a hundred penetration tests and security assessments developing an in-depth understanding of clients’ needs. Reuven was certified by the US Department of Homeland Security as an international industrial control systems cyber security expert.
Jeffrey Paine – Founding Partner of Golden Gate Ventures
Jeffrey Paine is the founding partner of Golden Gate Ventures, an early stage technology venture capital fund based in Singapore investing in Southeast Asia with over US$60 million under management. Jeff started and manages the Founder Institute in Singapore where he is currently overseeing its expansion in Southeast Asia, and Japan. Since 2010 the Founder Institute in Singapore has graduated over 100 companies. He is a recipient of the Founder Institute Director Award 2012 for “Greatest Ecosystem Impact” Worldwide (Singapore).
Golden Gate Ventures’ investments in Southeast Asia include Redmart, Carousell, Tradegecko, Coda Payments, Ayannah, Orami, Ruma, Moneysmart, Grana and Appota amongst others.
He is a Singapore native and graduated with a Bachelors of Business Administration (Information Systems) from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
Koichi Saito – Founder & General Partner of KK Fund
Koichi Saito is founder & General Partner of KK Fund, a venture capital fund investing in seed stage internet and mobile startups across South East Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Launched in 2015, KK Fund has made more than 10 investments including EventPop and Giztix across four themes: marketplace, fintech, logistics and media/entertainment.
Koichi previously worked at IMJ Investment Partners as Director and responsible for IMJ’s investments throughout Southeast Asia. Prior to IMJ, Koichi worked at Private Equity Fund founded by George Soros, and was engaged in several corporate and hotel acquisitions.
Koichi holds a Master of Business Administration degree from IE business school in Spain.
Dr. Saul Reichman – Head of “Driving Change” at Renault-Carasso Innovation Lab Israel, VC & Product Development
Dr. Reichman has a 9-year Venture Capital (VC) & corporate venturing experience dealing with innovative technologies. He is responsible for heading and establishing Coca Cola’s, Henkel’s, Renault’s corporate innovation arms in Israel and beyond and a proven entrepreneur experience raising initial funding for startups. He has expertise in developing strategic business relationships with clients, distributors and suppliers and experiences in defining/implementing new product development, IP protection and technology transfer.
Takashi Sano – Venture Partner and Regional Manager of Global Brain
Global Brain (GB) is an international venture capital firm with US$500million under its management. GB invests startups of Series A and above in Japan, U.S., Asia and Israel with typical investment size of up to US$5 million.
Takashi is looking after APAC region for investment and support startups, including PatSnap, intellectual property analytics platform for enterprise, Arcstone, IoT and big data platform for manufacturing andCoins.ph, next generation of financial service for unbanked and so on. Prior to joining GB, Takashi was managing smartphone peripheral business at Sony. He looked after whole supply chain, sales and marketing and P&L to maximise its business in APAC, Middle East and Africa. Takashi also worked for Sony as the role of technology investment and M&A, formulating joint and spin off venture.
Yaron Zeidman – CTO of AGODA
As AGODA’s CTO, Yaron manages a team of 800 people – big scale data driven & heavy machine learning running multi B$ of transactions a year. Prior to that – Liveperson Chief Technology Officer from January 2010-2012. Previously, Yaron was Vice President of Research & Development, Consumer Operations since October 2007. Prior to joining LivePerson via its acquisition of Kasamba, he was Chief Technology Officer at Kasamba, Inc. from February 2004, responsible for its research and development group as well as its 15 production operations. From February 2001 to February 2004, he was the Director of Web & eCommerce solutions at888.com, responsible for research and development associated with the company’s Internet payment systems. Yaron also held various management-level positions, including Vice President of Research & Development at iRadius.com from September 1999 to February 2001.
Elisha Tan – Developer Programs Regional Lead for APAC of Facebook (based in Singapore)
Elisha believes that entrepreneurs have the ability (hence responsibility) to make the world a better place, and a way to do that is through technology. She helps developers build local tech communities to make the world a more open and connected place. By night & weekends, she’s the founder of TechLadies, a community-led initiative for women in Asia to connect, learn, and advance as programmers in the tech industry. Since Jan 2016, they’ve taught 177 ladies how to code in Singapore and Malaysia with 5 ladies getting employed in engineering roles.
Elisha has been featured on multiple newspapers & media sites, mentored at Startup Weekends (San Francisco & Penang), and spoke at Slush Singapore and Techsauce Summit, amongst others.
Monthida McCoole – Investor at muru-D, Cocoon Capital
Monthida, a Thai national and long term Singapore resident, is actively involved in the startup accelerator space – first with JFDI.Asia and now with muru-D (wholly owned by Telstra). With her in-depth knowledge of startup accelerators and close-ties with the community, she has developed a solid network of the stakeholders in the ecosystem including entrepreneurs, investors, and government organizations. Monthida has invested in several early-stage digital companies in Southeast Asia including Silent Eight and Sonru. With her previous investment banking experience at JP Morgan, Monthida now works closely with entrepreneurs to advise on finance-related issues and to support their investor engagement.
Arnaud Bonzom – Co-founder of Map of the Money
His recent report “How do the World’s Biggest Companies Deal with the Start-up Revolution?” details the bullish efforts by Multinational Corporations to engage start-ups and leverage on their capabilities. A prolific speaker, Arnaud shed light on the often overlooked, yet active approach by corporates to tap into the minds (and indeed, businesses) of entrepreneurs.
His research is highlighted in leading organization such as Bain, Bearing Point, Deloitte, GSMA, Oliver Wyman, Orange, BNP Paribas and Saudi Aramco and received extensive media coverage in Forbes, Bloomberg, Les Echos and other media.
Arnaud is an Entrepreneur in Residence at INSEAD. Prior to 500 Startups, Arnaud was part of INSEAD, where he was responsible for facilitating interactions between MBA students/alumni and the entrepreneurship ecosystem. Arnaud is also working on his spare time to develop some tools for the startup ecosystem.
Arnaud has an MSc in International Marketing and Business Development from SKEMA Business School, France and a Bachelor Degree in Applied Mathematics and Social Sciences from University of Versailles, France.
Dr. Liraz Lasry
Dr. Lasry received her Ph.D. in Marketing from of the Recanati Graduate School of Business Administration, Faculty of Management, Tel Aviv University with specialization in trends, creating and spreading Innovation at the ‘Social-Digital’ Era, Branding, Consumer Behavior and Social Influences (PhD advisors: Prof. Dan Ariely, Prof. Ron Shachar). She was the winner of the Dick Segal award for excellence in marketing research.
In 2014, Liraz was invited to join Singulariteam VC, where she is a personal advisor the the VC’s chairman, representing him at the portfolio companies on issues of branding and marketing, and advising the VC’s startup companies CEOs through strategic processes. In some of the main portfolio companies she has built, led and advised the branding and strategic process from day one. She also advises some startups outside the VC.
Liraz is the judge at the “Product of the Year” innovation award, and at Startuponomics Tel-Aviv and the creativity judge at Israel’s annual advertising agencies ranking, for Globes Business Magazine.
She is now a lecturer at Tel-Aviv University’s MBA and executive programs (both Israeli and International) and academic manager of manager training programs at Lahav. In addition, she lectures at NYU on Marketing in the context of Innovation, entrepreneurship and startups (NYU-TA). Formerly, she was the associate academic manager of the International MBA program at Tel-Aviv university (SOFEAR IMBA). Liraz is often Invited to give marketing and innovation lectures and workshops in Israeli and international firms.
Dr. Lasry teaches several advanced marketing elective courses , including Trends, Branding and Brands Management, Marketing management and strategy, Digital Marketing for Executives, Consumer Behavior. The original and popular course that she develops and teaches is on trends, innovation and social influences (how things – products, services, behaviors, ideas – spread socially and become popular or ‘viral’).
Her previous experience includes several years of strategic marketing consulting in a leading Israeli consulting firm with specialization in the fields of consumer behavior, consumer research, brand positioning and marketing strategy. In addition, she led the development and establishment of the company’s specialization in the field of youth marketing, for both national and international projects. Their main clients included high-level executives in top Israeli firms.
In recent years, Liraz has also worked with Mr. Leon Recanati on a wonderful non-profit project, aimed at promoting social entrepreneurship and social innovation.
Liraz was invited to speak at TEDxJerusalem in December 2012.
Nichapat Ark – Advisor of NSI Ventures
Nichapat Ark is an advisor to NSI Ventures, an angel investor, a startup mentor and Seedstars World Bangkok Ambassador. She has more than 20 years of experience in financial markets in Thailand. Her most recent post before she left her banking career was Executive Committee and Managing Director, Financial Markets for Standard Chartered Bank Thailand where she took part in driving the bank’s strategic planning and execution functions. Additionally, she was responsible for financial markets sales & trading, capital markets as well as asset & liability management for the bank. During her 10 years with Standard Chartered Bank, she spent 2 years in China as Managing Director of Financial Markets Sales based in Shanghai.
Nichapat obtained her Master of Business Administration degree, majoring in Finance from Sasin Graduate School of Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, and spent a term on exchange at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. She received a Bachelor of Business Administration at Assumption University, Thailand.
Adrian Stewart – Partner of Galaxy Ventures Co., Ltd
Adrian has 25 years’ experience with tech startups across SE Asia in various rolls as a co-founder, advisor, manager as well as an investor. He is a partner in Bangkok-based Galaxy Ventures which focuses on early-stage investments in entertainment, e-commerce and everything digital and has 8 companies in its portfolio. Adrian has served as a mentor in the Bangkok and Hanoi chapters of the Founder Institute and with the Jeju Center for Creative Economy & Innovation in Korea.
Suwatt Pathompakawan – Co-Founder of Skootar
Suwatt (Boyd) Pathompakawan, A Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Skootar, an on-demand motorbike messenger platform for businesses in Bangkok.
Born in Bangkok, Engineering educated in the UK. , worked as an Export manager in Denmark. Boyd started his entrepreneurial journey 10 years ago when he started his first business selling furniture to hotel chains. A guy with many ideas, he then started a restaurant, a blind massage place, and a few oversea investments.
With 10 years experience running his own businesses, he saw a problem in delivery/motorbike courier services in Bangkok area. “SKOOTAR” was originated and dedicated to help SME owners, just like him, handling company’s documents and logistics.
Born in Bangkok, Engineering educated in the UK. , worked as an Export manager in Denmark. Boyd started his entrepreneurial journey 10 years ago when he started his first business selling furniture to hotel chains. A guy with many ideas, he then started a restaurant, a blind massage place, and a few oversea investments.
With 10 years experience running his own businesses, he saw a problem in delivery/motorbike courier services in Bangkok area. “SKOOTAR” was originated and dedicated to help SME owners, just like him, handling company’s documents and logistics.
Dr. Panachit Kittipanya-ngam – Director of innovation Department of EGA
Director of Innovation Department, Electronic Government Agency responsible for driving digital innovation for Thai government. My experience is highly on developing digital platform strategy for business, implementing strategy, innovating products & services and commercializing with creative marketing and partnership strategy for B2B, B2C and B2B2C. My current role is to drafting roadmap, driving policies and implementing platforms for innovative government services such as Open data API, Big data Services, Digital Service Standard and future planning. Awarded the national startup leader of the year 2016 from National Innovation Agency.
Timothy Hughes – VP of Business Development of AGODA
Timothy Hughes is the Vice President Business Development of Agoda (a Priceline Company). Agoda.com is one of the world’s largest online accommodation reservation companies with more than 1.2 million properties in 40 different languages. Timothy is a “retired” blogger and pundit. Previously he was the editor and publisher of one of the top online travel industry blogs (the BOOT: the Business Of Online Travel) and a writer at the Travel Tech and Online Industry blog Tnooz. Tim is a former lawyer and venture capitalist. Tim has a Bachelor of Commerce and Hons Law Degree from the Australian National University.
Juthasree (June) Kuvinuchkul – CEO of Metta group
CEO, Metta Group; Deputy Managing Director, Alumet; Cofounder, GrabThailand
A Harvard Business School graduate with a diverse background in manufacturing, commodity trading, beauty product to tech companies.
Juthasree has a passion for innovative startups looking to solve real problems in the society.
Holding true to the vision of Metta Group, which is about business prospering to create meaningful value for lives, she supports entrepreneurs, leaders and creative projects to make their ideas happen.
Amarit Charoenphan- Co-CEO HUBBA, Co-founder Techsauce
My passion and life’s work has been to help people realize their dreams and become the most successful startups, entrepreneurs, and freelancers by building a vibrant, supportive startup ecosystem through the best coworking spaces, events, education, media and funding scene. As the cofounder of HUBBA, Thailand’s 1st coworking space and the Hub of Startups in Thailand, we serve 200+ active members and over 6,000 visitors in our 3 years of existence. HUBBA is also leader in activating the Thai technology startup ecosystem through events, conferences and media. With experience in organizing over 300 events, HUBBA is best known for as Co-Country Host of Geeks on a Plane Southeast Asia tour in Thailand in 2013 and 2014 as well as organizing Start it Up Conference 2015 (via our media joint venture Techsauce), Thailand’s top tech startup conference attended by over 800 people in 2015. My ultimate goal is to create a vibrant technology startup ecosystem in Thailand, by providing valuable resources and support to our members and the greater Thai startup community via creating highly collaborative coworking communities, world renowned events and conferences, highly informative and Silicon Valley-style education and workshops and by spreading the world via our media Techsauce, we want to elevating Thai startups to a regional and global level and transform Thailand into a true digital economy and Bangkok into one of the major startup capital of Asia.
Bart Bellers – Founder Partner & CEO, Xpdite Ventures
“THINK DIFFERENT & JUST DO IT”, is what I believe in. I am a passionate innovator, a self-confessed maverick and sought-after speaker with 20+ years experience in corporate innovation, travel technology, startup ecosystems and business development. If you seek the status quo, we might NOT be the perfect match.
It is time for a new model to realize the promise of startups and build better companies .
That is why I launched a new breed of venture firm, a hybrid model between a venture capital and a startup studio. Unlike incubators or accelerators, we are an active investor and become a co-founder by leveraging our deep industry expertise and global network to drive unrivaled value for our startups, superior returns for our investors and faster innovation for corporations. If you believe what I believe, I’d love to hear from you.
Before, I founded a management consultancy and held several executive positions for the world’s leading travel tech company. As the architect behind next.amadeus.com, the leading travel tech community in Asia Pacific, I had the pleasure to work with amazing entrepreneurs and built up a solid network with strong relations in the global startup ecosystems.
In a previous life, I successfully led commercial and e-business projects at the leading edge of internet technology and founded a startup that transformed the way companies moved online.
Oh yes, I also learned the art of making a great espresso when I worked for a famous Belgian-Italian coffee roaster.
Pragmatic and result oriented, with a strong entrepreneurial spirit, forward thinking and technology background, I am an early adopter of Lean Startup and committed to take startups to the next level, increase the returns of investors and speed up corporate innovation.
Nick Annetts – Managing Director of Wunderman
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Eyal Schiff – Visionary and co-founder of Dotomi
Eyal was the visionary and co-founder of Dotomi, which developed personalized media display advertising that is dynamically adapted in realtime at the user and impression level. The company was acquired in November 2011 for USD 295 million. Eyal was mentor in Microsoft Ventures Accelerator Tel Aviv, Seedcamp (London), and he is active investor in several startups.
Eyal as inventor was granted several patents, including recent patent for secured identities collaboration system and methods.
Chris Jones – Executive Creative Director, China & APAC Wunderman
Chris has over 30 years of experience, working across 6 different countries. From London to Paris, Shanghai, Sydney, Amsterdam and Hong Kong, he has led multi-cultural creative teams at agencies such as DDB, Ogilvy and Havas to deliver groundbreaking and award winning projects across almost every category for some of the world’s most iconic brands. His experience encompasses multiple disciplines including activation, direct marketing, brand communication and digital (being an early adopter by joining one of the first Asian interactive agencies in 1996).
As well as being a judge at many of the advertising industry’s award festivals such as Cannes Lions and One Show, he is also a regular speaker about the power of creativity and digital branding at universities and marketing events across Asia.
Chris is also a published author, with two industry books The UX of ME and The Axis of Success to his name as well as a series of science fiction short stories under the pseudonym Christopher Hart
Eyal as inventor was granted several patents, including recent patent for secured identities collaboration system and methods.
Oscar Ramos – Program Director of China accelerator
Oscar Ramos, Program Director of Chinaccelerator, is a “Full Stack Innovator” with expertise ranging from product development to corporate strategy. He leads the Chinaccelerator program in Shanghai from recruitment to program delivery, and oversees development of the Chinaccelerator ecosystem of mentors, founders, investors, and partners.
Oscar has experience as an entrepreneur, management consultant and early stage investor. A Telecom MEng and Biomedical PhD dropout, Oscar began his career 14 years ago as an R&D engineer working in Reseach Center for Ericsson and Telefonica, until discovering Business Model Innovation and transitioning to the world of startups. After several years working for a MedTech Startup, Oscar moved to China in early 2008. Since his arrival to China, he has been involved in innovation: product launches, go-to market strategies, venture capital financing and M&As for startups and multinationals.
Oscar is a regular speaker in conferences worldwide about innovation and entrepreneurship, and is a learning facilitator in MBA programs about entrepreneurial management, innovation and venture capital.
Anix Lynch – Partner of Expara
Anix Lynch is Managing Partner of Expara –Government Saving Bank’s fund of funds doing early stage investment in Thailand with focus in Fintech, AgriTech, and Medtech. She is a director and senior advisor of Fintech companies, a lecturer at Sasin MBA class and a frequent panelist/judge in top startup competitions including Slush, True, AIS, SCG, Star 4.0, Disrupt University.
Anix was a Vice President of MQDC, Chearavanont Family Office, where she focused on investment in real estate sustainable technologies and impact investment. In 2014, she originated the concept of True Digital Park and first draft of Thailand 4.0.
Anix previously worked in Tokyo for 10 years at MGPA (BlackRock), NCC (CBRE Investor). As a native Japanese speaker, she received BA from Kyoto Ritsumeikan University and MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Tiwa York – Head Coach, Kaidee
Tiwa York is the Head Coach of Kaidee (a.k.a CEO). He is passionate about changing lives through trading second hand goods, startups, and building great teams.
Along with a team of 5 awesome people, Tiwa founded an online marketplace which is now known as Kaidee in 2011 as an intrapreneurship project in his role as CEO of Sanook Shopping. Today, Kaidee is a C2C online marketplace with 200 thousand sellers, listing 1.5 million items for sale and reaching 7 million people per month.
From the beginning, Tiwa set out to build a different kind of platform, one that impacts how Thai lives. To achieve this, he encouraged his team to ‘get out of the building’ to listen to customers for feedback. Tiwa and his team remain committed to this way despite the fast changing environment of the business.
Tiwa has been recognized for his passion, his leadership, and his efforts to build the team – which is now the biggest startup team in the country – and the business. He is invited to be a mentor for many startup teams.
Tiwa has over 20 years of experience in the digital industry. Prior to his current role, he was Platform Director at Omnicom Media Group responsible for building its first digital services unit in Thailand. Before that, he was Managing Director at Admax Network, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development of DMS Group, and Managing Director at New Media.
Tiwa began his career as a Product Manager at Medicalogic/Medscape which is now part of GE Medical Systems and WebMD, respectively.
Marius, A. Veltman – UX/UI Expert, DEUXERS
“My passion is creating refined experiences that help users reach their goals with the least amount of energy.”
Marius Veltman is a user experience designer and creative technologist from the Netherlands with over fifteen years of experience in digital product design. Marius has an admirable track record working with some of the worlds most influential companies like Google, RedBull, KPMG. He retains a profound knowledge of what is moving today’s digital users. By designing delightful and frictionless user experiences, Marius aspires to make our world a better place.
Bobby Liu – Senior Director, TOPICA Founders Institute
Bobby Liu is a global citizen, having lived and worked in 5 different countries. A keen learner, he appreciates the differences in cultural background of people and what make them tick.
Ideas abound, he started a coworking space/incubator called Hub.IT (http://hubitasia.com), a space that provides to young entrepreneurs a conducive environment to innovate and share collective experiences, and in the process contributing to building a great entrepreneurial ecosystem in Hanoi and Vietnam. Hub.IT was acquired by Topica end of 2015, where he’s now the Senior Director of Topica Edtech Group and co-director of the Topica Founder Institute.
Bobby Liu is also a current and active mentor of the Google Developer Launchpad Accelerator and is also advising on numerous startups in Southeast Asia.
He is very active in the startup community, volunteering his time to mentoring startups and helping them achieve their goals. One of the initiatives he pioneered is an umbrella platform called Techfest.
Daniel King – Head of Strategy & Media Planning,Facebook
Over 20 years making brands famous, it’s my passion and now I get to do it on the world’s best Advertising platforms. With exposure to Global and Regional FMCG/Agency I have developed an expertise and skill set unique in market.
My extensive Media sales experience has given me exposure across a broad range of clients, categories and Media Platforms.
In my agency role, I run teams across Programmatic/Performance, Cross platform, Sponsorship Activation, Media Strategy development, Content Creation and buying across digital and offline.
17 Years at Network Ten one of the top three TV networks in Australia in positions from assistant to Sales Director.
3 Years at Mediacom on P&G leading Digital Transformation.
2 Years at Facebook working on Brand & Screen Strategy globally based in Sydney Australia.
Nick Annetts – Managing Director, Wunderman Thailand
Nick has been in digital and direct marketing for 20+ years, having started his career in mobile telecoms in London, Nick then moved into the agency planning arena, before moving clients side to online startups Virgin.com and Opodo.com, where he managed strategy and implementation teams across Europe and Asia.
Nick then moved back to the agency side to head up APAC planning for Wunderman on the Ford account. Nick has been in Bangkok for 11 years, 6 of those as MD of the Thailand operation, with a team of 85 people working on regional digital hub operations as well the local partner for blue chip clients such as Nestle, Microsoft, and Thai Airways.
Event Banana
“The easiest way to find the perfect venue for your event.”
While the event market makes up 141 Billion THB in market size, with 18% annual growth, venues are facing 85% of unused capacity.
At the same time, event hosts lack the means to seek event venues more efficiently. Event Banana is an online marketplace where event hosts and venue providers can meet.
System Stone
“Sharing ecosystem of underused factory capacity and SMEs.”
There are over 2 million registered SMEs in Thailand, with only 140,000 factories. Many factories are facing the problem of inactive downtime of their machineries. System Stone provides the tool for factories to efficiently manage their systems (calibration, maintenance & repair) on an online and mobile platform.
PenguinT
“Best airfare from the market into your hand.”
PenguinT is a mobile travel market application, offering the best airfare deals from the local market. Collecting all information from local agencies and air ticket wholesalers, PenguinT allow their users to be able to obtain the cheapest airfare in the market in an easy to use, one-stop service platform, where customers can receive deals and promotions right into their hands and complete their booking all within the platform.
QueQ
“No more queue line.”
QueQ is a mobile application offering queuing solutions to restaurants, banking services, hospitals, or practically, any businesses where their customers must wait in line for the queue. Using QueQ, there will be no more waiting in the queue, since users can book their queue online via the mobile application platform and can enjoy any other activities in the area until they are called.
ZeekDoc
“An online platform to search for doctors and make appointment.”
It is very difficult to find the right specialists to treat the people ailment. ZeekDoc offer an online platform for you to be able to browse through the best specialists and make appointment real-time.
JabJai
“School management system at your fingertips.”
With the goal of becoming a fingerprint payment system company, JabJai evolved into the school management system business, allowing schools to be able to bridge the communication between school, parents and students in one platform.
Zort
“Online centralized inventory and workflow management system.”
Zort is a one-stop online platform for e-Commerce businesses, offering a solution for managing inventory, sales and logistics. Zort is the ultimate solution for distributors and retailers who are at the phase of growing their business.
PEAK
“Online Accounting Solutions.”
Accounting can be such a pain for entrepreneurs – not everyone can understand accounting – and this can be time consuming and boring. With PEAK’s Artificial Accountant Service, businesses can automate their accounting tasks, where accounting documents can be created, transaction can be recorded through API, financial reports can be filed, and business cashflow and customer’s payment behavior can be analyzed.
Property Flow
“Online Real Estate & Property Listing Management Tool.”
An online workflow management tool for real-estate agents to manage their complete workflow from anywhere via an online and mobile platform. Property Flow manages listing distribution via partners’ portals, at the same time allowing agents to manage their leads and carry out CRM activities on the platform. With the Property Flow mobile application and web portal, agents can make their work more efficient by improving their workflow.
My Cloud Fulfillment
“Warehouse & Inventory management system for SMEs.”
One of the hindering factors for SMEs to scale is the fact that they cannot manage their inventory efficiently. MyCloud offer a one-stop warehouse service to managing inventory, packing and shipping directly to customers.
Talad Invoice
“Bridging SMEs and Retail Investors.”
SMEs normally faces the trouble in raising funds. Consequently, Talad Invoice offer the solutions which helps SMEs to raise funds from retail investors by using LCs, invoices, contracts, purchase orders and notes as a guarantee.