August 19, 2022 Signing of Memorandum of Cooperation in the Field of Disruptive Innovation with the Kingdom of Thailand

On Friday, August 5, TAWARA Yasuo, Director-General of the Global Strategy Bureau, has signed a memorandum of cooperation in disruptive innovation with the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society of the Kingdom of Thailand.

1. Background of memorandum

Japan and the Kingdom of Thailand have experiences of mutual exchange on disruptive innovation in the field of ICT, and there are actually specific results of cooperation such as the case of the Innovation Program (*1) implemented by MIC, where applications from the Kingdom of Thailand account for more than 20% (*2) of the total.
In order to further reinforce such relationship and to develop cooperation in this field, MIC has signed a memorandum of cooperation with the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society of the Kingdom of Thailand.

• *1
  Innovation Program: A program that supports challenges to technical problems that may become seeds for disruptive innovation in the field of ICT.
• *2
  Based on the results of "Disruptive Challenge Category" for the solicitation of Innovation Program in FY2021.

2. Outline of the MOU

MIC and the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society of the Kingdom of Thailand agreed to promote cooperation in the field of disruptive innovation in the following areas.

(1) Coordination and mutual cooperation with universities, public-sector organizations, private companies, regional organizations, etc.
(2) Promotion of further coordination starting from the existing programs for disruptive innovation
(3) Promotion of the new ideas by innovators through sharing information and experiences at events, etc.

3. Future direction

Under this memorandum, MIC will cooperate with related organizations and promote cooperation in disruptive innovation with the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society of the Kingdom of Thailand.