From
left: Khun Ajva Taulananda, Vice-Chairman CP Group; Prof. Said
Irandoust, AIT President and Dr. Khin Ni Ni Thein, Vice-President for
Development and Resources
On 6 of June, executives from the Charoen Pokphand Group of Companies
Thailand visited AIT . The delegation from the company included Khun
Ajva Taulananda, Vice-Chairman CP Group, Khun Naowarat Bumrungchit,
Senior Vice-President, Learning and Development, Khun Hwei Choo Tay,
Senior Vice-President R&D/QA, Khun Anurat Suthamnirun,
Vice-President, Khun Tinakorn Ruenthip, Executive Vice-President, Human
Resources, Khun Sujint Thammasart, Executive Vice-President,
Aquaculture Research and Development and Khun Kittinut Tikawan, General
Manager Lifestyle Retail Company of the CP Group. Also present at the
meeting were Dr. Khin Ni Ni Thein, Vice-President for Development and
Resources, Prof. Rakshit, Vice-President Research, Dr. Amrit Bart,
Associate Professor, SERD, Mr. Sanjeev Jayasinghe, Director Fundraising
Campaign and Manjulika Bhatia from the fundraising office.
Charoen Pokphand Group (CP Group) with
headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand, is today one of Asia’s leading
conglomerates. With businesses and affiliates operating within the
agribusiness, retail and telecommunications markets’ the Group is both
a regional and global organization with operations in 27countries. The
Vice-Chairman of the CP Group emphasized that they had visited AIT with
the express intention of wanting to collaborate in a variety of areas
which will be mutually beneficial and were specifically interested for
cooperation with AIT for their upcoming project of a virtual Corporate
University. We discussed ways in which interactions could be further
increased between the CP Group and AIT, and they are interested in
establishing a deeper collaboration, and not only through the provision
of scholarships. Such partnerships could include the development of
joint academic programs with direct input from them on the curriculum,
theses work, internships and joint collaboration in education, research
and capacity building.
The initial targeted areas for
collaboration include agriculture, telecommunications, renewable
energy, food processing, human resource development and knowledge
management. Towards achieving this collaboration both AIT and the CP
Group have decided to form smaller teams in the mutually agreed upon
areas of interest and it was decided the focal point for discussions
from AIT will be Mr. Sanjeev Jayasinghe, Director FRC and the CP Group
nominated Khun Tinakorn Ruenthip, Executive Vice-President, Human
Resources and President –CPF Training Center to be their focal point
for coordination with AIT. It was decided that a letter of intent be
drawn out and signed based upon the discussions had in the meeting to
formalize the tie-up between AIT and CP Group of Companies. For each of
these areas we will be appointing an AIT focal person who would then
carry out detailed discussions with their respective counterparts at CP
Group, with the aim of developing concrete action plans. This meeting
had been brought about by the efforts of the Golden Jubilee Fundraising
Campaign office.
