On September 9 and 10, Michelle Ray-Jones, as president of the Licensing Executives Society (LES) in Thailand, together with Ploynapa Julagasigorn, the LES Thailand secretary, hosted a virtual annual conference 2021 under the theme “Supporting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Challenges and Opportunities During the COVID-19 Era.” The conference was broken down into four main sessions featuring 20 guest speakers on a wide range of topics in response to the pandemic.

The first session, “COVID-19: Impacts & Plans for the future,” highlighted COVID-19 vaccine development, addressed the impact of increased remote working arrangements on infrastructure and operations, and covered challenges and shifts in human resources, sales, services, insurance, legal operations, and the use of advanced technology—such as AI-generated inventions in biotech and related IP ownership issues.

In the second session, “Future Technology and Licensing Trends,” speakers discussed tech and licensing lessons learned in 2020, licensing trends in 2021, and predictions for the near future.

The third session explored how food, nutrition, and agriculture collectively play a crucial role in helping humanity recover from this pandemic. The speakers talked about the booming plant-based products industry and discussed its effects on the agricultural landscape and sustainable agriculture initiatives in Southeast Asia.

The last session focused on global climate change and decarbonization efforts, with speakers highlighting some decarbonization solutions and exploring possible technology-transfer strategies to enable the sharing of technologies that can fight climate change.