About

The new center shall create a culture of achievement, the Center promotes Academic Excellence via Securing competitive research grants; Providing infrastructures and shared facilities; Attracting promising new faculty; Nurturing young talents; Publishing high-impact/cutting-edge researches. Outreach Excellence via Partnering with academic bodies, enterprises, and public health sectors and Translational Excellence via Seeking opportunities for commercialization and startups and working closely with AIT EC.

 

Vision and Mission

The Center for Health and Wellness Technologies (WellTech) at the Asian Institute of Technology will be a leading interdisciplinary academic organization in Thailand dedicated to advancing, applying and providing real-world industry-relevant health and wellness technologies solutions that are backed by strong research backgrounds, delivering social impact across local communities/regions and internal forums.

Mission.   To create a culture of achievement, the Center promotes:

• Academic Excellence via
  • Securing competitive research grants
  • Joining faculty efforts
  • Providing infrastructures and shared facilities
  • Attracting promising new faculty
  • Nurturing young talents
  • Publishing high-impact/cutting-edge researches
• Outreach Excellence via
  • Partnering with academic bodies, enterprises, and public health sectors to identify new opportunities and to access potential financial, human, and data resources, enabling industry-relevant achievements and delivering social impact worthy of a mention
• Translational Excellence via
  • Seeking opportunities for commercialization and startups
  • Working closely with EC during the entire phase of ideation, design, implementation and deployment

Focus Areas

Based on the team expertise and the aforementioned global challenges, we identify the following focus areas:

1. FA1: Assistive Technology – provides assistive or rehabilitative devices such as haptic devices or robotics for people with disabilities, elderly people, or disadvantaged people.
2. FA2: Public Health and Wellness – improves general well-being by using geographical approaches such as nutrition analysis and using technological interventions such as wearables that are grounded on strong theoretical medical evidence. Vaccine research.
3. FA3: Health & Wellness Sensing and Diagnostics, Signal Processing, Machine Learning – utilizes sensing technologies such as fMRI, NIR, EEG, EKG, vision-based systems/spectrophotometers, biosensors, biochips or nanotechnologies together with machine learning/AI to non-invasively monitor, track, and predict health statuses.
4. FA4: Health Informatics Systems/Platforms – integrate health data from various sensing sources in the forms of images, audio, numeric records etc., then store, analyze, visualize, and manage for the purposes of notifications, monitoring and tracking, and improving workflow/process of health delivery service.
5. FA5: Technology Acceptance – understands patients’ usage, adaptation, and overall reception of contemporary technologies and provides design recommendations and guidelines.

Expertise

Competitive Advantage.  Discussing the unique competitive advantages of the Center:

• Interdisciplinary faculty:  joining stellar faculty from different research areas such as sensors, robotics, nanotechnology, informatics, e-health, neurosciences, biomedical engineering, entrepreneurship, GIS, information management, etc. create unique opportunities and enable the development of truly industry-relevant real-world health solutions.
• Strong existing connection with enterprises and public sectors: our existing strong connections of our faculties with renowned hospitals such as Thammasat University, Mahidol University, or research institutions such as NSTDA introduces unique working space for contribution.
• International:  enables the Center to serve as an international hub collaborating efforts nationally and internationally, especially in nearby regions such as Myanmar, Vietnam, and Cambodia.
• Entrepreneurship Center (EC): collaboration of the two Centers facilitate commercialization and industrial connections.
• Artificial Intelligence Center (AIC): collaboration of the two Centers enable advanced analytical methodologies merging the health and data science/AI domains.

Services Offered

These are the following activities of the Center.

The following activities contribute to the mission of Academic Excellence:

• Joint grants. Jointly participates in grants
• Publications. Publishing in high-impact publications in the health related  domains
• Competitions. Organizing AIT or national competition in the health related domains
• Seminars. Organizing seminars in the health related domains
• Symposiums. Organizing national/international symposiums in the health related domains

The following activities contribute to the mission of Outreach Excellence:

• Visiting partners. Identifying and visiting potential national and international partners to identify possible collaboration opportunities
• Public relations.  Explaining to media and outsiders regarding the Center achievements

The following activities contribute to the mission of Translational Excellence:

• Clinical applications and trials. Bringing center technology into clinical practice and performing clinical trials.
• Spin-off companies: Foundation of spin-off companies to commercialize technology developed at the center.

Leadership

The founding team of the center are: Dr. Chaklam Silpasuwanchai; Prof. Dieter Trau; Prof. Manukid Parnichkun; Prof. Matthew N. Dailey; Prof. Mongkol Ekpanyapong; Prof. Nitin Tripathi; Dr. Attaphongse Taparugssanagorn; Dr. Chutiporn Anutariya; Dr. Tanujjal Bora; Dr. Vatcharaporn Esichaikul and Raffaele Rico. 

Center Directors: The founding directors of the center shall be Prof Dieter Trau as Director and Dr. Chaklam Silpasuwanchai as Deputy Director.

Members
Internal AIT Members

Name	Department/School	Role	Focus Areas
Prof. Dieter Trau	ISE/SET AIT Entrepreneurship Center	Director	FA2, FA3
Dr. Chaklam Silpasuwanchai	ICT/SET	Deputy Director	FA3
Prof. Manukid Parnichkun	ISE/SET	Member	FA1
Prof. Matthew N. Dailey	ICT/SET	Member	FA3, FA4
Prof. Mongkol Ekpanyapong	ICT/SET	Member	FA3
Prof. Nitin K. Tripathi	ICT/SET	Member	FA2
Dr. Attaphongse Taparugssanagorn	ICT/SET	Member	FA1, FA3
Dr. Chutiporn Anutariya	ICT/SET	Member	FA4, FA5
Dr. Tanujjal Bora	ISE/SET	Member	FA3
Dr. Vatchaporn Esichaikul	ICT/SET	Member	FA4, FA5
Dr. Raffaele Ricco	ISE/BNMSE	Memeber	FA1, FA3

Confirmed External Members

Name/Organization	Contribution	Focus Areas	Contact Point
Department of Physical Therapy, Mahidol University	Helps with mobility research	Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation	Matthew Dailey
NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, Kent Ridge Road, Singapore 119228	Public Health vaccination	RNA based genetic therapy	Dieter Trau