The association will work with related organisations to build qualified embedded systems designers and developers to get outsourcing work from aboard.

"It's an important step to develop the local embedded system industry and push Thailand to become an embedded systems development base," said Tesa's president Pansak Siriruchatapong.

Tesa has come out with two major projects this year. The first, Pansak said, involved the improvement of existing local embedded system developers' skills while the second project would focus on training people in the area.

The association has worked with the Technology Promotion Association (Thailand-Japan) with support fom the Japan External Trade Organisation  and the Association for Overseas Technical Scholarship in Japan to initiate a project called Embedded Software Training Alliance for Thai Engineers.

Called Estate for short, the project is to train local people.

Pansak said the main objective was to train people who could eventually work in the local and international embedded systems industry.

Since the project is a cooperation with the Japanese government, participants in the project will be trained on embedded systems and Japanese language in Thailand for six months and after that they will be sent to train and work with Japanese embedded systems companies for a year.

"This will help them improve capabilities, both in embedded system design and in development to serve practical industry demands," Pansak said.

He said the association hoped that this group would also be a key connection to bring outsourcing work to Thailand and help the local industry.

Tesa plans that in the first year, around 15 developers will be selected to join in the project and the figure will increase to 30 and 50 people in 2007 and 2008 respectively.

While working in Japan, the Association for Overseas Technical Scholarships will take care of transport and accommodation expenses as well as half the salary while Japanese embedded system companies will pay the balance of the salary.

However, those who are selected to be trained in the project will have to pay Bt60,000 for the training course in Thailand

"Normally, this kind of course is about Bt100,000, but we will subsidise to some extent," Pansak said.

The training course in Thailand is expected to begin in June and the first group will go to Japan by the end of this year.

As embedded systems are key in various types of consumer and electronic devices including automobiles, household appliances, cameras, vending machines, toys and even mobile phones, they offer huge business opportunities to local developers.

Japan is a leading country in embedded systems development and it has a huge embedded system industry, yet the country still lacks trained people.

Pansak said from this project it's hoped that Thailand would get not only technology transfer from Japan, but also new market areas where local embedded systems developers can work.

In parallel, Tesa has also worked with the Software Industry Promotion Agency (Sipa) and the National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre (Nectec) to increase staff numbers.

The project is to work with universities to develop related embedded system courses to build a new generation of local developers that can serve the industry's demand.

Pansak said initially, around five to 10 local universities were expected to join in the project and it's hoped that around 500 to 1,000 embedded systems developers could be produced a year.

"We're now in the planning process but we hope that the project will be concluded within this month," he said.

Pongpen Sutharoj

The Nation

pongpen@nationgroup.com