This future looks bright

Visitors to the BOI Fair continuing all this week should keep in mind that it by no means matches a World Expo. But how could it? The 2010 World Expo in Shanghai drew 73 million people. The target here is five million.

In Shanghai there were 250 countries and organisations represented. The BOI Fair has thousands of booths inside the Challenger Halls at Impact, but the outdoor zone – its main attraction – has just 42 pavilions.

Participants in a World Expo come from, well, all over the world, and you can always count on dazzling exhibits and presentations. The Thailand Pavilion in Shanghai was one of the smallest despite its 3,000 square metres.

At the BOI Fair, the Charoen Pokphand Group takes up that much space, but its pavilion looks huge compared to the others, even those of the foreign companies that operate in Thailand and have joined the local corporate giants in showing off their wares and services.

Both the Shanghai Expo and the BOI Fair have the same theme – “Toward a green society” – but the comparisons must end there.

So the BOI Fair isn’t going to satisfy globetrotters. Instead, it’s designed to highlight corporate achievements in Thailand in technology and innovation and inspire others to keep pace. The viewing public gets an education in our industrial prowess.

Once you understand this, you can fully enjoy the show, even amid the occasional inconveniences.

Indoors, the Mitr Phol Group explains how sugar can make the world greener. With sustainability in mind, the group aims for zero waste, turning it into energy instead. Find out where the gold in our gold shops comes from with a visit to the Akra Mining booth – the whole production process described, capped by the sight of a 10-kilogram gold bar made from ore dug up right here in Thailand.

Thirteen high-profile companies showcase their products in the indoor French Pavilion too, a collective wonder to behold, but the undeniable highlights of the fair are outdoors, where things are truly “Going Green for the Future”.

We won’t get any greener as long as our cars are still running on fossil fuels, so several auto makers display technology never seen before in Thailand.

Toyota’s Prius C is a compact hybrid already on sale in Japan as the Prius Aqua. Honda has its Brio, Jazz Hybrid and CR-Z Hybrid to offer a promise of “Blue Skies for Our Children”. Honda hopes to reduce its vehicles’ carbon emissions by 30 per cent by 2020.

Mitsubishi’s electric car, the I-MiEV, and Nissan’s Leaf are sold in the US and Japan and are on view here for envy purposes. Nissan’s own concept electric car, the Townpod, only drew its first gapes at last month’s Tokyo Motor Show.

Electronics firms like LG, Hitachi, Toshiba and Samsung proffer a huge array of products for the future. In fact, Hitachi takes visitors on a four-minute express train ride through the future four seasons, and it still gets chilly in winter.

Speaking of chilly, LG has a refrigerator that keeps track of what’s inside and tells you which items need to be cooler or warmer and which ones should be tossed in the garbage. You can also try on some eyeglasses that turn 2D home TV into 3D.

See if they’ll let you wear them while you admire Samsung’s extra-thin TV screen. The Samsung Pavilion is a beacon every evening with brilliant displays on massive LED screens.

SCG sets out to reassure anxieties about surviving climate change and worsening natural disasters with a 60kg personal polyethylene dome. Kasetsart University’s Architecture Faculty helped SCG develop the “Shield-Life” for use in crises, such as plummeting temperatures or flash flooding.

And you can take a turn in an earthquake simulator. Few Thais have experienced a real tremor, and few will ever want to after a round of pretending.

With 14 per cent of Thais now over 60 years old and their share gaining, a home for the elderly called “SCG Care” is informative. You wear weighted gloves and blurry goggles to walk through the house and get a better idea of what senior citizens deal with. Take note of how the furniture and fittings are arranged to help them.

The fair has a slew of 3D theatres, and Nissan and PTT go for “4D” with films about the likely future and why we must reduce oil consumption, respectively. The “4D” doesn’t involve time travel, of course, but there a pretty nasty dinosaur attack in PTT’s noticeably moist 10-minute screening.

The Chevrolet Pavilion has a 3D holographic depiction of what we’ll be driving and riding in 2020, much like the floating marvel seen at the Shanghai World Expo.

Everywhere you go, I was pleased to discover, there’s free Wi-Fi – three hours per login. But I encountered disappointments as well.

For a “green” fair, trees are certainly noticeable by their absence. The grounds are quite hot throughout the afternoon.

Shanghai visitors got food from around the planet, but the BOI Fair hasn’t even managed to recruit cooks from the four regions of Thailand, unless McDonald’s is there to represent them all.

And the outdoor toilets charge Bt5. As for parking the car, it’s Bt30 for three hours and Bt20 per hour thereafter.

All these factors and more beg the question of whether Thailand can cope if it wins the bid to host the 2020 World Expo. The Thailand Convention & Exhibition Bureau’s pavilion offers a glimpse with a multimedia presentation about just that possibility.

Let’s hope we can get it together by then.

CHALLENGES AHEAD
The BOI Fair continues inside the Challenger Halls at Impact Arena in Muang Thong Thani through Friday. The outdoor displays continue until January 20. The fair is open from 10am to 10pm daily.