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November 20, 2006
The Medici Effect in Bangkok
According to The Medici Effect, the bestselling business book from innovation guru Frans Johansson, the biggest innovation breakthroughs occur when there is an intersection of diverse ideas and cultures. With that in mind, check out the fusion of Swedish innovation know-how and Thai entrepreneurship that could lead to new breakthroughs in Thailand. ScandAsia has the details:
"Sweden takes good care of creative ideas and clever innovations, from idea to market, while Thailand is full of great entrepreneurs making decent incomes and often not much more. The idea behind Rangsit University’s new Master of Arts Program, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Management, is to merge the best of the above from the two nations. That will enable Thai students, who wish to work in an international environment by creating products and services from their visions, to achieve their goals.
RSU starts the program early next year at its Sathorn campus in downtown Bangkok... The programme runs over approximately 18 months. Five to ten months of them will be spent at Mälardalen University in Sweden, [where] innovation and entrepreneurship is taught at the school’s center for creativity/innovation/design. How long one stays in Sweden depends in which country the student wish to write the thesis that rounds off the program."
This is more than just a one-time event for Bangkok. It looks like the city is engaged in a comprehensive effort to create similar types of Medici Effects throughout the economy. On the Medici Effect blog, Frans Johansson profiles the launch of The Medici Effect in Bangkok:
"I did not actually expect to be in Bangkok only weeks later after making that post [about the diversity of Bangkok]. It is actually my first time here and it was for the launch of the Thai version of The Medici Effect. The publishers here provided me with a great tour of both Bangkok and the outskirts of the city - and what I found interesting was that the country’s diversity is so deeply ingrained in its history. Everywhere there are clear signs of how China, India, Burma and other regions has been a huge influence in the country’s development. Thailand is, in some ways, at a huge intersection of cultures and so it makes sense that they are fairly comfortable with this diversity."
Posted by dominic at November 20, 2006 9:34 AM | Recommend this! | +dlc | +dig
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