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in the country and has been very popular with Thais. Within the year we also want to take Start Up Thailand to Chiang Mai, Phuket or Songkhla, and Khon Kaen. The initiative is to promote and enhance the capabilities of start-up businesses in Thailand. With the Ministry of Finance, we’ve created incentives such as tax exemptions. We’ve presented Thailand to ASEAN as a gateway for start-up businesses in the region. You don’t need investment, imported technology or even to be somebody. You can create a start-up with only an idea.What about work the ministry does in energy and infrastructure, such as railways and water-flow management?Coordinating with the Ministry of Energy, we work to develop renewable energy like solar power, wind, biomass and geothermal, and don’t neglect conventional energy like petroleum. We also work on nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Research is being carried out at different universities. And my wish is to assemble them all in one place, to put them into one system. On water, we’ve developed a community water management system model which over 600 communities are using. The modelhas also drawn interest from the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. On the railway system, we work with the Ministry of Transportation. We’re doing more research on high-speed and double-track trains. We’re producing railway engineers to supply the workforce of the future. We also work to enhance the capacity of the Thai industrial sector so they can take part in any system to come.Tell us about Thailand Mobility, an initiative that lets public researchers work with the private sector.For Thailand Mobility, our minister asked the cabinet to approve this initiative last year. This was due to the shortage of researchers in the private sector – because the researchers are government officials and only worked with public universities. So this initiative allows public university researchers to work with private companies for up to two years, which was formerly prohibited. And the two years count as government service. We’ve released almost 200 public university researchers into the private sector so far. And this initiative will continue, perhaps for the next five years, until the private sector can build a pool of researchers of its own.Elite+ 15