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Published on February 26, 2008

The centre will also push the use of technology to improve the country's agricultural system and importantly, reduce the so-called digital divide.

Nectec's director Pansak Siriruchatapong said that the centre this year would work more closely with hard-disk drive manufacturers to help the industry train its workforce so local staff become more professional.

"For years we've worked with this industry with the hope of maintaining our status as a hard-disk drive manufacturing base and now we could claim another step to success as not only can we keep the existing manufacturers here but also see an expansion of investment by the industry in Thailand," Pansak said.

Last year, 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 sends 15 local PhD researchers to be trained in Western Digital's laboratory in the United Stated for 18 months. After training, they return to set up a company laboratory 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 development in the area.

Having more qualified people, Western Digital also plans to invest Bt5.6 billion in Thailand to increase its production capacity by around 20 per cent.

Pansak said that this year the centre would expand collaboration to other hard-disk drive manufacturers to create confidence for all hard-disk drive manufacturers to use Thailand as a manufacturing base. Local support would be provided and more research funding to develop new technology to serve the industry would be encouraged.

The value of hard-disk drive exports from Thailand is Bt500 billion a year with around 150 million units produced.

Pansak said with the high value of this industry, it's necessary for the country to keep the status of a manufacturing base while encouraging local production to serve higher technology.

"So after collaboration with the industry, we hope to see in the next few years more investment shifting to a high level of production processes of, for example, read/write heads and hard-disk media in Thailand," he added.

In addition to the hard-disk drive industry, Pansak said the centre this year would also work with the electrical and electronics industry to develop technology to add more value to local products.

"In the first step we will help the industry develop new technology for air-conditioner products to make them smarter," he said.

The export value of air-conditioners in Thailand is Bt50 billion, of which 50 per cent is generated by local brands.

He said to help local brand manufacturers compete in the global market, it's important that they add new features to their products.

The centre will help the industry develop new technology for inverters and intends to develop sensors used in air-conditioners to make the products smarter.

"We foresee that air-conditioners in the future will come with comfort sensors which can measure temperature, humidity, air flow, odour and radiation and make automatic adjustments to control the environment to make it more comfortable for users," Pansak said.

He said this new technology would help local manufacturers to differentiate and add new value to their products, thus creating more competitiveness in the market.

Pansak said while technology was being applied to improve industries, the centre also intended to utilise technology to improve the country's agricultural system.

Nectec this year will work with the Agricultural Research Development Agency to develop a project called IT for Agriculture. The idea is to use technology in agriculture, especially in crop prediction and analysis.

"We plan to develop a modelling system which can help farmers make predictions and analyse their crops to see the overall crop situation in advance. This analysis will help farmers eliminate the problem of an over-supply of crops in the market," he said.

In the meantime, the centre is also in the process of developing IT for agriculture projects to support royal projects. Pansak said as the projects involved the entire agricultural process, starting from crop production and logistics through to marketing to end users, the use of information technology would improve the efficiency for the whole agricultural system.

"In this project, we plan to bring technology like the radio frequency identification system to improve efficiency, especially in food traceability and logistics," he added.

In addition, the director of Nectec has put a focus on using technology research to improve society and reduce the so-called digital divide.

"Society in the future will be affected by the use of ICT and it will bring more problems, especially gaps in the availability of technology between people in city and rural areas, so we have to concentrate on bringing suitable technology to improve the lives of everyone in the community," Pansak said.

In the first step, the centre has selected three model areas - Mae Hong Song, Nan and Omkoi which is a small district in Chiang Mai province - as pilot sites. The centre will explore the needs and find proper technology to aid the community's development.

Pongpen Sutharoj

The Nation