With the King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok (KMUTNB) Leadership Camp 2025 recently held in Bangkok, Thailand, the travelling party from the innobiz DUT Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation has been soaking in the wealth of entrepreneurial knowledge being imparted upon them.
After safely landing in the Thai capital on Monday morning, 09 June 2025 the entourage from innobiz DUT have shared some of the interesting experiences that they have encountered in their first couple of days in the southeast Asian country.
On Tuesday, 10 June 2025 their first day at the Leadership Camp, was mostly focused on networking and ensuring comfortability their surroundings including getting to know their counterparts from other parts of the world through taking a walk to KMUTNB Campus before engaging in ice breaking activities which also served as an opportunity to collaborate as universities and share perspectives.
Sharing insights from the camp, Kwanele Mazibuko, the founder and owner of Fortunate Nest, said that one of my biggest highlights of the day was the Pre-Engineering School within the university, which is essentially a high school.
“The practicality of the whole university’ faculties were out of this world. We were officially welcomed by Professor Pichet Syriyanyong, the University Vice President for International Affairs.
Afterward, we had a powerful session with Prof. Benjawan Thumthanaruk, from the Department of Agro-Industrial, Food and Environmental Technology, in the Faculty of Applied Science at KMUTNB, who is the founder of SuperSea, a crispy jellyfish snack, distinguished for its low-fat, low-calorie, and GMO-free quality,” Ms. Mazibuko explained.
She further highlighted that the presentation by Prof. Thumthanaruk was incredibly powerful to the extent that it swayed her from initially being reluctant to try a taste of the snack to eventually being comfortable with trying it, all thanks to the convincing presentation.
“She (Prof. Thumthanaruk) literally began her research under the Faculty of Applied Science in 2004 and started putting it on the market in 2024 after numerous obstacles along the way, and it’s the first innovative jellyfish product. She is looking to scale globally and has also won numerous awards. Her journey was undoubtedly an inspiration,” Ms. Mazibuko explained.
Following the intriguing presentation on the jellyfish snack, Ms. Mazibuko says that they engaged in more ice break activities which she says “forced all of us to approach and interact with one another”.
She described the ice-breaking activities as interesting as they had made things easy for them, as it had not been so easy to approach one another despite the hosts and other guests being generally friendly people.
“These activities assisted with strengthening our networking skills and create global relationships, exchange data about each other and mostly find ways to collaborate with each other as we got to creating costumes for cartoons in 20 minutes as groups and although it seemed so complex at the beginning we eventually enjoyed it to until we finished and it was easy as we worked as a team.
“This activity pointed out the importance of teamwork. Following this cartoon costume activity, we jumped to Sustainable Development Goals, which was something we already knew, but was nonetheless an important reminder of incorporating the SGDs in my business,” Ms Mazibuko said.
“From there we had to pick 1 SDG as a group and then determine under PESTEL (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, Legal) how it would have an effect in 3 years and over a 10-year period. My best picks were teamwork, forming global networks, being free minded in any room I enter. These skills will greatly contribute to Fortunate Nest and its future,” added Ms. Mazibuko.
Ms Nompumelelo Ngcobo, founder of Oluhlaza Energy, also chipped in were her experience of the Leadership Camp, particularly echoing Ms. Mazibuko assertions on the SuperSea jellyfish snack presentation as a highlight of the first day.
“Prof Thumthanaruk spoke about her journey of developing her business from her jellyfish research, sharing how the idea had sparked after she visited her neighborhood and she saw how her neighbours ate jellyfish. She then went on to researching about jellyfish, and found that it was filled with nutrients and collagen, before proceeding to finding the niche in the market for healthy snacks and that is how she the develop a healthy jellyfish snack called Supersea. She is currently working on exporting her products to other countries, with the focus country being China due its huge market,” explained Ms Ngcobo.
With a lot of emphasis in the camp being placed on fostering leadership qualities in the budding student entrepreneurs, the student entrepreneurs engaged in a leadership scale test activity.
“This helped us identify the type of leaders we are. We were expected to group ourselves into different types of leaders depending on the scale you fall on from one to three and in different countries. In our groups, we were expected to do activities together, with the first activity being making a superhero. This activity sparked our creativity and enthusiasm as a team and understanding each other through the process,” Ms. Ngcobo explained.
Delving into the SDGs, Ms Ngcobo said that said that these were important and how the Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, Legal (PESTEL) aspects can affect SDGs.
“In this activity we have learned that issues happening in our communities are also happening in other countries as well and as leaders and entrepreneurs we must work together in finding innovative ways to address these issues,” Ms Ngcobo added.
Another member of the travelling party, Ms. Ayanda Buthelezi of Kwa TK Farming Enterprise, spoke glowingly of the SuperSea jellyfish snack by Prof. Thumthanaruk.
“One of the standout points was the nutritional benefits of jellyfish snacks ; they are collagen- rich and protein-based, rather than carbohydrate-based. This makes them a healthy, compact food option, different from typical collagen supplements. These snacks can be consumed as actual food while still offering health benefits,” Ms. Buthelezi said, sharing her own insights on the innovation.
Additionally, she said that her biggest takeaway for me from this session, which served as the first official workshop of the camp, was the reminder that innovation and product development were not overnight successes.
“Prof Thumthanaruk highlighted how integrating academic research with real-world problems can be a powerful tool in building future-ready products. That really resonated with me, especially as someone who runs a small crop farming business. It made me think about how I could combine my business with my research skills from my MEng studies at DUT. I’m genuinely inspired to explore agro-processing as the next step in growing my business. I now realise the importance of patience, proper planning, and research in turning an idea into a successful innovation. Prof. Thumthanaruk, also emphasised that adopting innovative methods in production not only improves efficiency but also makes processes more scalable by cutting down on production time,” Ms Buthelezi shared.
Furthermore, she added that the session had sparked new ideas for her and had left her filled with excitement about what lay ahead for her enterprise, Kwa TK Farming Enterprise. The camp ended on Sunday, 15 June 2025.
Pictured: The innobiz DUT entourage during the KMUTNB Leadership Camp 2025 currently underway in Bangkok, Thailand. From left to right are DUT Entrepreneurial Studies and Management lecturer Lana-Ann Brady (back turned to camera), Nompumelelo Ngcobo of Oluhlaza Energy, Zama Gcabashe of Edga Scents, and Kwanele Mazibuko of Fortunate Nest.
Samkelo Mtshali
