Bangkok--14 Mar--Media Planner Consultant
A team of Thammasat University's postgraduate students won the first place of "Asia Venture Challenge 2011", a business plan competition hosted by Thammasat University in collaboration with the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET), after presenting a business plan for dengue diagnostic kit. The winning team will represent Asia region at the global contest "Venture Labs Investment Competition (VLIC)" to be held in the US in May 2011.
Asso. Prof. Kulpatra Sirodom, the dean of Thammasat University’s Faculty of Commerce and Accountancy, revealed that in "Asia Venture Challenge 2011", Asia's business plan competition held for the 7th year on March 8-10, 2011, XZell Laboratory Team comprising of postgraduate students from Thammasat University's Master's Degree in Marketing (MIM) was the champion and the team will be an Asia's contender in "Venture Labs Investment Competition (VLIC)", which will be held at University of Texas in the US in May 2011.
"This year's competition achieves considerable success. The business plan competition recognized as the largest one in Asia, gains much attention from press and well-known universities in the region. It draws 13 teams of contenders who are pursuing their master's degree in business administration in 8 countries namely China, Hong Kong, India, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and the Philippines. It is pleasant that Thammasat University's postgraduate students won the first place. This does not only bring pride to the winning team, but also all business plans presented in the contest are the good start which paves the way for future success. As an education institute, we are proud to be participate in encouraging new business in the future", said Asso. Prof. Kulpatra.
The dean added that each team joining this year's competition has knowledge and ability and all business plans are interesting, distinctive and practical. Each team's strategy is pretty various and covers all business sectors involving agriculture, medicine and technology. All participating teams are well-prepared and are able to integrate business concepts into current global economic condition. It shows that Asian university students have global potential and the competition further creates new learning processes that can be developed as business models illustrating future business outlook.
Chanitra Charnchainarong, assistant manager of SET Group Issuer and Listing, said, "SET is very glad to be part of the competition allowing university students to show their ability and business potential. This year's competition is more intensive than previous years and it illustrates that university students in Asia have improved their ability in all aspects and have potential for global contest. In addition, the business plan competition shows that future business strategy needs to move forward to international stage and approach target groups more effectively. These will provide the business competitiveness and further growth".
Wansa Paerakkakit, a Thammasat University's MIM student and the leader of XZell Laboratory Team, the winner of "Asia Venture Challenge 2011", said that she is delighted that the team was the champion and it will be fully prepared for the global competition at University of Texas in Austin, the US in order to build reputation for Thailand and Thammasat University.
XZell Laboratory's business plan is for production of dengue diagnostic kit called DenkiTector. The diagnostic kit provides more effective and faster dengue diagnosis and evaluation. Apart from diagnosis, the kit can also assist physicians to be aware of level of patients' symptom. Patients will be provided prompt treatment. The kit is already patented in Thailand, the US and Germany.
"We create the business plan because of an inspiration that dengue fever mostly occurs in tropical areas and it is likely to widely spread, especially when the earth is getting warmer due to greenhouse effect. In addition, current diagnosis is done in some extent, so we think that if we can boost more confidence to physicians in diagnosing the disease more promptly, patients will be immediately remedied", said Wansa.
She added that in order to prepare for the global contest, the team has full readiness and it is confident that the Thammasat University's business plan is practical and serves market demand. Also, it expects that the plan will reasonably draw much attention from investors witnessing the contest.