Digital council lays out steps for next government to pursue Thailand 5.0
The Digital Council of Thailand (DCT) has proposed that the next government establish a national board of digital transformation, and a national board of education reform, allowing all public, private, and people sectors to collaborate towards building a digital economy, council chairman Suphachai Chearavanont said at a press conference on Monday.
His remark was part of seven proposals to accelerate Thailand's digital transformation, which he said is the path the country must take in order to sustain its growth and competitiveness while also keeping up with global changes and uncertainties.
The seven recommendations for Thailand's new government, as the country transitions to the digital economy, are:
- 1. Make computer language and computer science the primary subjects in elementary school. To use technology creatively, every child should have a computer with reliable software and be taught about ethics.
- 2. During prime time, promote moral and ethical media and content, with some incentives.
- 3. Create 20,000 tech startups to help drive digital transformation while deploying 1 million digital and tech workers.
- 4. Strengthen the new agriculture models of "Agro Industry Transformation”, "Smart Farming”, and "Food Tech”, while encouraging the formation of 3,000-5,000 organisations, cooperatives, and community enterprises 5.0.
- 5. Attract talented and good people into the executive bureaucracy by adjusting salaries to be comparable to or higher than what's offered by the private sector. Convert the government to a digital government (e-government), with at least 20% of civil servants having digital skills.
- 6. Establish five world-class innovation hubs: biotechnology; nanotechnology, and energy; digital and robotics; science and technology in space; health technology/preventive care.
- 7. Assist Thai entrepreneurs in expanding and building the infrastructure that will drive growth.
Suphachai explained that all seven proposals had been scrutinised in the context of the five key directions that the council has identified as critical for Thailand's digital economy.
The five directions are: integrating collaboration of all parties, developing digital talents with ethics through education reform, strengthening the digital economy, pushing Thailand to be an Asean innovation hub by 2025, and developing an equal digital society with digital ethics and literacy.
Suphachai said that in order to put those proposals into action, Thailand needed an independent agency with some authority to oversee the work. The agency must comprise representatives from the public, private, and non-profit sectors to ensure that the digital transformation leaves no one behind.
"We need an agency like the National Board of Digital Transformation," he noted. "The government does not have to do everything. However, it must understand how to design a proper mechanism and assign those mechanisms to the appropriate working group."
Thailand, according to Supachai, is not yet ready for the next era of technology, which he refers to as Technology 5.0, in which technologies, entrepreneurs, and artificial intelligence (AI) must collaborate seamlessly.
More policies and actions are needed to drive the country's inclusive transformation to the digital economy in all dimensions, he said, in order to achieve Thailand's goal of technology 5.0.
As the council is directly responsible for encouraging the establishment of the entire digital ecosystem, including regulations, partnerships, human capital, and tools, the council had decided to provide the seven actionable proposals for Thailand 5.0 digital transformation.
He expected the proposals would serve as a reminder to all political parties of the importance of technology in closing or reducing the social inequality gap.
Meanwhile, he expected political parties to use these proposals as national development policies to strengthen the Thai economy while also increasing its competitiveness.
Suphachai promised that regardless of which parties won the election, the council would continue to do everything in its power to advance the country's digital transformation.
When asked which proposal he considers the most important, he replied that he would like to provide computers or laptops to all schools across the country so that children can have proper digital tools to explore and engage with the digital world in their own way.
"Let them [children] have their ways to connect in this new world order," he said.
