Program Director, The Equity Initiative 

Dr. Piya Hanvoravongchai is Program Director at The Equity Initiative based in Bangkok, Thailand. He is also a part-time lecturer with Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Medicine, where he teaches health systems management and health economics and leads a research program on the economic evaluation of health promotion. Hanvoravongchai started his career as a hospital clinician and director of a rural hospital in Thailand. He then moved into academia and later worked on health policy and systems research at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the World Health Organization (WHO), and Harvard University. He was the first coordinator of the Asia-Pacific Action Alliance on Human Resource for Health (AAAH) conference and currently consults for several organizations including the World Bank, WHO, GIZ, and Thai government agencies as well. Hanvoravongchai is also an editorial board member of the Human Resources for Health and the Journal of Health Sciences (Thailand). He co-founded HealthSpace.Asia, an online platform for Asian health policy research and development. He received his M.D. from Mahidol University and his master’s and doctoral degrees from the London School of Economics and Political Science and the Harvard School of Public Health, respectively.

Managing Director, TaejaiDotcom

Ada Chirapaisarnkul is Managing Director of TaejaiDotcom, the largest crowd-giving platform in Thailand, and concurrently serves as Head of Social Impact Advisory at ChangeVentures. Prior, she was a university lecturer and a co-founding executive director of G-Lab (Social Innovation Lab) at Thammasat University. Previously, she was a project manager at the Prime Minister’s Office, leading a multi-sectoral team to develop the first National Master Plan for Social Enterprise Development in Thailand, and later served as Deputy Secretariat of the Sub-Committee on Social Finance. In her free time, Chirapaisarnkul runs the Thai Young Philanthropist Network (TYPN), a community of purpose-driven professionals, whose initiatives pioneered the social investment and skill-based volunteering movements in Thailand over the past decade. She is a Rockefeller Foundation Global Fellow on Social Innovation, an Asia 21 Young Leader, a One Young World Ambassador, and a Global Shaper of the World Economic Forum. Chirapaisarnkul received her M.A. in international affairs from Columbia University, her M.Sc. in environment and sustainable development from University College London, and her B.A. in development economics from Thammasat University.