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Published on October 9, 2007

In the third era of Nectec, the centre will focus on creating networks and partnerships with universities as well as the private sector, both inside and outside the country, to use technology to support industries, said Nectec's director Pansak Siriruchatapong.

Pansak is Nectec's third director. For its 21st anniversary celebration this year, Pansak has set the next move of Nectec as the development of technology which has economic and social value so the centre can serve industry and benefit the nation as a whole.

"In the past two decades we started from helping the country to develop an IT policy and then laying down essential fundamental infrastructure to give the country and people the benefits of using IT. From now on it's time to support the users' side," he said.

Pansak said the centre had four key strategies for IT development. They are technology research and development, technology transfer, training the workforce and development of strategic plans.

In research and development, the centre will concentrate on platform technology, which will focus on sensors, security, knowledge engineering, wireless communication, embedded systems and open-source technology.

As sensors are to be used in many devices, they offer potential in terms of business applications for local development. As technology related to security will play a more important role in a connected world, it's necessary for the centre to catch up on technology development in this area.

He also predicted that the development of knowledge-engineering technology would be a key to developing the country's knowledge-based system while wireless communication would build basic telecommunications infrastructure and reduce the so-called digital divide.

As the world is moving into the post-PC era, the requirements for embedded systems, especially in various kinds of gadgets and electronic devices, is increasing, so this is also a potential area for local development.

Pansak also plans to concentrate on pushing the use of software to increase competitive advantages for industries. The development of open-source software is in the centre's technology-development road map as an alternative for industries to free themselves from using only licensed software.

"We conduct research and development in various kinds of technologies and hope they will eventually be transferred to industry for practical use," he added.

During the past several years, Nectec has transferred a bulk of technology including radio frequency identification system, open source, text-to-speech, microelectronics as well as assistive technology for people with disabilities, to support society and industry. Technologies developed by Nectec which came into real use in industries generated around Bt870 million of economic value to the country in the past year.

"As we have to keep doing research to serve industry, before we start any technology-development projects we have to consider economic aspects and how much value the project will give to the industry or the country," he said.

Meanwhile, to strengthen the local IT industry, Nectec also works with universities and the private sector to train people. Recently the centre collaborated with US-based hard-disk drive manufacturer Western Digital to train local researchers on read-write head technology.

Under the collaboration, the centre will send 15 local doctorate researchers to be trained in Western Digital's laboratory in the United States for one and a half years. After training, they will be back to set up a laboratory for the company in Thailand to produce read-write heads for one year. Then all 15 researchers will go back to their research institutions to use their knowledge to make further technology developments in the area.

Pansak said the centre would subsidise 50 per cent of the training costs for all 15 researchers while Western Digital would oversee the remaining costs. The training costs Bt3 million per person.

"We plan for the first group of researchers to be sent for training this month," he added.

The centre is also working on the establishment of IT career standards. It has recently given funding support to Sirindhorn International Institute of Technology to study and draft a standard career certification for Thailand.

Pongpen Sutharoj

The Nation