According to the Bangkok Post, the Digital Economy Promotion Agency (Depa) is aiming to train 1,000 government officials with big data skills at the Government Big Data Institute (GBDI), which was launched in June 2019. Of the targeted number, 500 officers will be trained at a beginner level, 300 at an intermediate level and 200 at an advanced level. The officers trained at the intermediate and advanced levels are expected to help train others in their respective government agencies. Each skilled officer could share their knowledge with three or four people.
An initial batch of 200 government officers have already been trained at the institute, undergoing a training course called “Innovation With Data Analytics and Visualization for Public Officer”.
Depa is collaborating with more than 40 government agencies in order to assist them in developing Infrastructure, enhancing management and handling big data. GBDI is supposed to support the government’s decision-making through data analytics. The GBDI has recruited 25 data scientists and it plans to increase its staff strength to 40 by 2020. The new staff are to be drawn from government scholarship students, the private sector and university researchers.
GBDI is currently working on big data projects in three sectors: public health, tourism and agriculture. GBDI has already completed 16 data-related projects and it plans to complete 40 projects by September 2020.
In June last year, along with the GBDI, Depa launched two other institutes, IoT and Digital Innovation Institute and the AI Research Center. All of these institutes are supposed to drive digital transformation in Thailand.
(Source: Bangkok Post)
