By Zia Askari | TelecomDrive.com in Singapore
As a fast moving economy, Thailand is today undergoing transformation change – to embrace next generation infrastructure and broaden its information highways and innovation is right there in middle of everything.
Speaking on the sidelines of CommunicAsia 2017, Chalermpol Tuchinda, Director, Software Park Thailand explains how the country is nurturing innovation.
“In Thailand, we are promoting startups, we are involved in understanding the process of innovation – we have activities around ideation, we have activities around the proof of concept. And then we have big events where we are bringing in more than 30,000 people together where innovation can be understood in a better way. We also create an atmosphere where corporate can take advantage of what we have,” he added.
Thailand 4.0 – Driving Digital Transformation
Thailand 4.0 is the vision to transform Thai economy into an innovation-driven one. And today innovation is very important for the country’s growth.
“We are completely committed towards Thailand 4.0 vision. This is how we are encouraging innovation-friendly atmosphere in the country,” he added.
Institutions such as Software park Thailand play a pivotal role when it comes to driving the spirit of innovation in the corporate corners.
Before Thailand moves towards 4.0 version, it had to undergo the 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 stages first:
- Thailand 1.0 was all about agriculture. During this stage, Thais had made a living out of farmland and livestock. They had grown rice and various other plants to support themselves.
- Thailand 2.0 was about small scale industries. In this stage, Thais started using tools in their economic activities. The country started manufacturing clothes, bags, beverages, stationery, ornaments, etc. On the overall, Thailand’s potential had increased many fold.
- Thailand 3.0 (the today’s Thailand) is about big industries. At present, Thailand has manufactured and exported steel, automobiles, natural gases and more.
Thailand 4.0 – all about Security, Prosperity and Sustainability
This is a great model being promoted by the government, but this model will prove successful only with public – private partnerships. The private sector including banks, educational institutes, research organizations, SMEs, startups and people must all jump into the same bandwagon and head towards the same direction.
To drive these efforts, it is very important for the nation to have quality communications and telecom infrastructure in order to support its global vision. And additionally, internet penetration rate must also increase considerably to ensure the smooth connectivity and digital enablement envisioned by the government.
