KMUTT acts as incubator for students’ innovations

“We’ve been promoting our resources to launch new start-ups over the past three or four years,” said Dr Tiranee Achalakul, assistant to the president of KMUTT. “Several in-house projects are becoming five to six tech companies, with the university’s holding company being a promoter of these ventures.
“Our framework includes supporting students to compete in domestic and international technology and innovation forums, helping them pitch projects to local and foreign investors like venture capitalists.
“Prior to that, we help them prepare business plans, get legal advice and so forth. We also have a co-working space for qualified teams of students to build their start-ups.
“The KMUTT vision is that we have as many as 18,000 students in technology and related fields. We hope that at least half of them are aware of the opportunities for them to be entrepreneurs rather than just finishing university and getting employment in the corporate sector.
“At least they should be encouraged to start up their own businesses, and we want to give inspiration. Then our next target is to get 10 per cent of the 18,000 students to go through the process of understanding the importance of entrepreneurship to our economy.
“Eventually, we hope just 1 per cent or 180 students set up tech start-ups and become entrepreneurs, so our curriculum is designed to support this mission.
“Visionear is one example representing a team of our students who have been incubated by the university. Nuntipat Narkthong, a co-founder of Visionear, is in the processing of setting up a company to commercialise the technology used in a gadget that helps blind and visually impaired persons to see things. The university will be among the shareholders of this company.
“Nuntipat and his team did this project during their senior year of the bachelor degree programme in computer engineering. The Visionear gadget is an Internet of Things device that helps the blind live a more convenient life.”
Normally, such people need the assistance of others to find the right products when they go shopping. “However, if they use Visionear, which is a set of eyeglasses with a camera and headphone, they will get product information from the barcode when the camera [scans] the product held by the user.
“For example, they will know what kind of canned drink they are holding or know which banknotes they are using. Basically, the gadget helps the blind detect things around them and lets them know what they are dealing with. When they walk, there is also a feature for optical detection of obstacles at eye level.” Tiranee said that compared with imported products, which cost around US$3,000 (Bt104,000) a set, Visionear would be much cheaper, costing just Bt4,000-Bt5,000, though with fewer features.
“Another interesting start-up is an application for specialists to screen and analyse X-ray and other medical images, including [three-dimensional] images, on mobile devices, allowing them to work on the go.
“This application is also used at several hospitals for doctors to examine these images on a mobile device so that hospital personnel don’t have to bring along the X-ray films when the doctors visit patients at their beds.”