Tech hopefuls get lessons from alibaba

Six Thai start-ups have graduated from the eFounders Fellowship Programme while gaining first-hand insights after participating in field visits and attending lectures to understand the digital transformation that has swept China over the past 20 years.
The joint initiative by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and Alibaba Business School aims to equip young entrepreneurs to unlock their full potential and to bridge the digital divide. 
Six Thai start-ups were among the 37 Asian entrepreneurs to spend 11 days at Alibaba headquarters in Hangzhou, China. They are: 1x1 Wall, provider of creative space for up-and-coming artists; Karma X, operator of a merchandising platform for creators seeking to support social causes; Tourkrub, provider of an online travel platform connecting tour package providers to travellers; Flow Account, developer of an easy-to-use cloud accounting solution for small businesses; GNG Tech, operator of Khonde.com, a logistics platform connecting truck and lorry providers to factories or other businesses; Weshopchina, a shopping enabling platform to help Thai customers to shop on Taobao and Tmall; and TakeMeTour, developer of the largest marketplace for local tours and activities in Thailand, with more than 20,000 local experts from 55 cities.
Amornched Jinda-apiraksa, CEO and co-founder of TakeMeTour, was one of 200 applicants from Souteast Asia to seek the eFounders Fellowship and was interviewed via video conferencing 
“We leant a lot of things including the business and the marketplace ecosystem developed in China that can be applied to Thailand and other countries in Southeast Asian region. Importantly, we experienced the working culture at Alibaba and learnt their approach to problem-solving that can be applied to our work here,” said Amornched.
Last but not least, he said, the programme gave him a chance to make more friends, and meet the co-founders and CEOs from other start-ups in Southeast Asia to build connections and find partners for future collaboration.
“We will recommend our Thai start-up friends apply to join this programme to get first-hand experience themselves. As for me, I will share the knowledge we got from this programme with my start-up friends here.”
Kridsada Chutinaton, co-founder of Flow Account, said the programme gave him valuable experience from learning about Alibaba’s e-commerce ecosystem development and how the company helped Chinese and other people. “For almost the entire trip, we did not use cash, just digital money, especially in Hangzhou. When we gave merchants or service providers cash, they would not accept it at all. It is very interesting for a technology company like ours,” said Kridsada.
The programme experience has led Kridsada to enlarge his business vision beyond products and services to also think about platforms that benefit all stakeholders. 
“This trip experience gave us inspiration to develop a long-term vision and to be patient until it succeeds, as long as it is beneficial for the people and the country.”