BANGKOK, Thailand – Thailand’s household debt problem has been studied and debated for years by economists, banks and regulators. On October 15, twelve leaders spent an afternoon building instead. Over the past few months, the ShakeSphere team ran three hackathons and sat down with people living with debt, including riders and service workers. One thing became clear: understanding the problem isn’t enough. The people who can actually act on it need to be in the room.
So this time, we changed the format. Led by our CEO Dave Malhotra and COO Pete Chemsripong, the ShakeSphere Executive Solution Lab brought CEOs and senior leaders from banking, lending, investment, the Bank of Thailand, data, research and policy together with our builders and UX researchers, during the IMF–World Bank Group Annual Meetings week. One real borrower problem: young people working hard to avoid falling into NPL, with nowhere early or safe to turn for help.
Four groups worked through the ShakeSphere Solution Canvas, our framework for moving from understanding a real person, to framing the problem, to ideas, to a prototype tested with real users. In under two hours, each group built a working prototype, and our researchers put them in front of real users. As one executive told us afterwards, most events he attends are speaking sessions. This one was hands-on.
We planned to end the day by voting for the strongest prototype. Instead, the room agreed on something better: combine the best of all four into one solution. Over the next 30 days, ShakeSphere will take that solution forward.
We are truly grateful to the leaders who honored us with their time and shared their experience:
- Tana Pothikamjorn, CEO, KASIKORN LINE
- Thee Chanyaswad, Chief Data Officer, KASIKORN LINE
- Victor Topoyossakul, CEO, Rabbit Group
- Vee Charununsiri, CEO, Alpha Capital Partners Group
- Sumeet Ahuja, CEO, Evoque Impact
- Amarit Charoenphan, President, New Zealand Thai Chamber of Commerce
- Thiranun Tyra Arunwattanakul Arunwattanakul, COO, MONIX
- Nakarin Amarase, Deputy Director, Payment Systems Policy & Financial Consumer Protection, Bank of Thailand
- Kittipat Jeamsripong, Deputy Director, Enterprise Risk Management, Bank of Thailand
- Sorapol Reongvan, Deputy Director, Enterprise Risk Management, Bank of Thailand
- Attakrit Leckcivilize, Research Fellow, TDRI
- Ken Khorana, Writer & Economist, The Reformist Mind
If this is a problem you care about too, we’d be glad to hear from you.
Less Dialogue. More Solutions.
