Meticuly CEO Graduates from LIF Advance Program, Makes Pitch at Global MedTech Showcase
Dr. Boonrat Lohwongwatana, Chief Executive Officer of Meticuly, Thailand’s leading design and manufacturing company specializing in making medical implants with the use of AI-assisted engines and 3D printing technology, has graduated from the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Leaders in Innovation Fellowships (LIF) Program – LIF Advance – and continued to pitch to investors, corporates, funders and government stakeholders at the Global MedTech Showcase.
The Global MedTech Showcase event was the culmination of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Leaders in Innovation Fellowships (LIF) Advance Programme which was delivered by SETsquared, under the theme of ‘disability inclusion and reducing inequalities in healthcare’. The programme aimed to provide further training and support to some of the best LIF alumni as well as giving them a landing opportunity into the UK innovation ecosystem. Twelve innovators from 12 different countries took part, all with a technology or business model that contributes towards eliminating inequalities in access to healthcare, or towards empowering people with disabilities and chronic health conditions to participate fully in society.
LIF Advance is a bespoke, individual program of relationship-building and business growth activities open to alumni of the Leaders in Innovation Fellowships (LIF) programme. The programme aims to help participants grow their businesses responsibly and sustainably, expand their networks into the UK, and further develop their leadership skills. It achieves this by bringing together a cohort of innovators from the LIF Community and providing them with bespoke training, mentoring and networking opportunities, both internationally and in the UK.
The program, which is run by the Royal Academy of Engineering and supported by the UK’s Government’s Newton Fund, has celebrated more than five years of providing unique support for entrepreneurs around the world. Recently, the Academy marked the milestone by holding the Asia Innovates summit, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, bringing together the most promising engineering entrepreneurs from seven of the participating countries – China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam – alongside notable business leaders and investors from the region and the UK.
"The Leaders in Innovation Fellowship programme has produced a global community of entrepreneurs that continue to have a lasting impact in their home countries, as leaders, role-models, and visionaries." - Mahmoda Ali, Senior Programme Manager
Royal Academy of Engineering
As an online community, LIF also provides a platform for the LIF engineers, researchers and innovators from around the world to collaborate and learn from each other to speed the commercialization of products that will change the world for good.
Dr. Boonrat Lohwongwatana said, “Entrepreneurial training for research-driven innovators can be a powerful tool for expanding businesses like Meticuly and similar businesses that innovate for the betterment of the future. Strategic science and innovation partnership is very important in the medical world. The LIF program serves as a great platform that brings together the best innovations in the region and directs potential technologies to meet the demands of all sorts of industries.”
In LIF Advance 2020, the program focused its efforts on ‘Disability Inclusion and Reducing Inequalities in Healthcare’. This first cohort of the LIF Advance programme brings together alumni from 13 countries whose technology or business model contributes towards eliminating inequalities in access to healthcare, or empowering people with disabilities and chronic health conditions to participate fully in society. Thailand was among the 13 countries and Meticuly’s Dr. Lohwongwatana was selected to join the program.
“The LIF program mentors in commercialization skills, business modelling, customer markets, negotiation, presentation/pitch training, operations and leadership, finance, IP and regulations. This will further expand Meticuly’s potential and capabilities in navigating new businesses and opportunities in supporting the medical world with better and more affordable 3D-printed implants” Dr. Lohwongwatana said.
Since 2014, the LIF programme has fostered innovation leadership by supporting 1000 of the world’s brightest engineering entrepreneurs from emerging economies across four continents. As Engineering is a global profession, the program works with partners across the world to advance engineering’s contribution to society on an international, as well as a national level.