Google’s website http://www.blog.google confirmed the investment, saying that the investment allows the global firm to partner with a great local startup and deepens its commitment to Indonesia’s digital economy.

“By investing in local companies, building locally relevant products and training local talent, we hope to see more amazing local champions like GO-JEK emerge in Indonesia,” Google said.

Indonesia is estimated to have more than 133 million internet users, the fifth largest population of internet users in the world.

Google said it has already trained nearly 60,000 Indonesians on mobile app development, toward its goal of training 100,000 developers by 2020. Through its Gapura Digital initiative, the company has also trained more than 40,000 small business owners in 10 cities.

GO-JEK is a rival of two other major ride-hailing services, namely Uber and Grab.

While some bases are well known to groups that want to attack them, the map also shows what appear to be routes taken by forces moving outside of bases — information that could be used in planning bombings or ambushes.

The map, made by Strava Labs, shows the movements of its app users around the world, indicating the intensity of travel along a given path — a “direct visualization of Strava’s global network of athletes,” it says.

Routes are highlighted over large parts of some countries, but in others, specific locations stand out.

The map of Iraq is largely dark, indicating limited use of Strava’s app, but a series of well-known military bases where American and US-led anti-jihadist coalition forces have been deployed are highlighted in detail.

These include Taji north of Baghdad, Qayyarah south of Mosul, Speicher near Tikrit and Al-Asad in Anbar Province.

Smaller sites are also highlighted on the map in northern and western Iraq, indicating the presence of other, lesser-known installations.

More dangerously, stretches of road are also highlighted, indicating that Strava users kept their devices on while traveling, potentially providing details about commonly-taken routes.

In Afghanistan, Bagram Air Field north of Kabul is a hive of activity, as are several locations in the country’s south. And in Syria, Qamishli in the northwest, a stronghold of US-allied Kurdish forces, is clearly visible.

Tobias Schneider, a security analyst who was among the group of people who discovered that the map showed military bases, noted that it indicated military sites in Syria, as well as the Madama base used by French forces in Niger.

“In Syria, known Coalition (i.e. US) bases light up the night. Some light markers over known Russian positions, no notable coloring for Iranian bases,” Schneider wrote on Twitter.

“A lot of people are going to have to sit thru lectures come Monday morning,” he wrote, referring to soldiers likely to be taken to task for inadvertently revealing sensitive information while trying to keep in shape.

The issue could have been fairly easily avoided: According to Strava, “athletes with the Metro/heatmap opt-out privacy setting have all data excluded.”

Thai start-up Ricult, founded by a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) alumnus is now perhaps the most interesting start-up in the “social enterprise” category – not only in Thailand but also on the global stage. Ricult has received kudos in many social enterprise competitions around the world. And it is the first Thai start-up to receive a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Ricult was also bestowed the “Innovative Ideas and Technology on Agribusiness” award from the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO).

Ricult came to Thailand in mid-2017, just months after it had first launched its service in Pakistan. It was co-founded by Aukrit Unahalekhaka, CEO of Ricult Thailand, and his classmate at MIT, a Pakistani. The inventors shared a passion to empower agriculturists with technology and innovation.

“Ricult comes from the middle syllables of the word ‘agriculture’. We desire to utilise technology and innovation to change the country to empower the agriculture industry, which is the backbone of Thailand,” said Aukrit.

He said that 40 per cent of the world’s population are agriculturists or around 1.3 billion people, of which around 700 million people work in developing countries where they have largely not been empowered by technology and innovation. Ricult’s solution and service is to feed satellite imagery and weather information through machine learning to provide predictive information that could help agriculturists increase efficiency while reducing cost – and eventually help them increase their profit margin.

“We invite agriculturists to use our services,” said Aukrit. “First, they need to put their farms and what crops they plant as well as the location of their farm into our system. Then, we will monitor agriculturists’ farms with a satellite to capture an image. We use the satellite image, along with weather information, as well as information from the agriculturist to do big-data analysis. Then, each agriculturist can access our analysis of their data and transform it into a conversational database. The data stored on the ‘Cloud’ via their convenient channels included mobile applications, web-based applications, LINE, and short message services (SMS).”

“And it’s without cost,” said Aukrit.

He said satellite images and precise weather information empowered by the company’s big-data analytical software can help agriculturists to improve their yields. The precisely analysed data, built specifically for their individual farms, can help agriculturalists more easily achieve precision farming.

In Thailand, corn yields are around 700 kilograms per rai (0.16 hectare), but maximum yeields of up to 2,000 kilograms per rai are being achieved in “developed” countries. With satellite image and weather information, he said, Ricult aims to double the corn yield in Thailand, reaching 1,400 kilograms per rai.

But that is not the end of it. Once the company has an expanded database, funding, and additional staffing, it believes it could help the nation achieve maximum corn yields of 2,000 kilograms per rai.

Under the plan, the company will start with big-data analysis for cash crops, started with corn in 2017, cassava in 2018 and rice, palm, and sugar cane in 2019.

Agriculturists in developed countries have been using technologies, specially big data and drones to manage their farms and that has helped bring yields of up to 2 to 3 times higher than in “developing” countries. Aukrit wants to bridge this gap with technology at an affordable price point, since most Thai agriculturists have small or medium sized operations and have a limited amount of money to invest.

“Our service is free for agriculturists. Revenue comes from other parties in the agriculture supply chain. Most are large corporates that we offer access to the analysed data,” said Aukrit. “In 2017, we got sponsorship from the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) and the Betagro Group. We helped 200 agriculturists monitor their crops over a total of 3,000 rai. We helped them improve productivity 30 per cent, reduce cost 20 per cent and increase their profit margin 50 per cent.”

His company aims to double its profit margin in 2019, while for 2018 it hopes to help 1,000 agriculturists with 10,000 rai of corn and cassava farms. And it also will do a base-line survey to enable future impact studies of Rivulet’s service to agriculturists and society.

“The big data for the agricultural sector is good for not only agriculturists themselves, but also good for many stakeholders in the supply chain, including banks who offer loans to agriculturists, fertiliser companies to know their customers, and feed factories to do traceability efficiently,” said Aukrit.

Ricult received a round of seed funding from DTAC and subsequent competition-related grants from around the world – together around US$250,000 (Bt7.83 million). It aims to raise a pre-series A round of funding worth $1 million in February.

“We want to be the social enterprise start-up with the capacity to raise funds and make a profit,” said Aukrit. “We will have a double bottom-line, making profit for shareholders and an impact on society.”

And he’s already working on the next related breakthrough: bringing the Internet of Things and drones to help improve the agriculture sector as well.

“There are so many technologies that can help the agricultural industry,” he said. “Innovation is in the company’s DNA.”

It’s a task that involves advanced digital tools such as machine learning, but my background is neither in computer sciences nor in marketing.

I began my career in finance, before alternating positions in marketing and finance. With every new beginning, I believe, the most important quality is attitude. I aim to embrace change as an opportunity for new successes. For one, you can’t really avoid change – but nor should you try to!

Change is a great opportunity and I encourage you to take a new job every three to four years. Whenever you change jobs or are given a new object, you need to be ready to deal with many unpredictable things: new responsibilities, new colleagues, a new boss, etc. Therefore, a “can-do attitude” comes first. Of course, you may be gripped by a fear of failure as you are about to start a new project. But we need to dare, to take risks and to act fast.

When you fail, think of it instead as gaining experience. Look back on both your failures and successes to learn from them.

The ability to embrace change is particularly critical right now because change is inevitable across all industries, including media, banking – and telcos as well.

Digital is the future. We need to be open-minded, acknowledge reality and learn to cope with consumers’ behaviour and technological changes as quickly as possible, changing the way we work and how we approach our customers.

Diverse customer behaviour

Traditionally, in our industry, the way to offer our products and services was done via SMS and MMS with designated timing.

But this approach is no longer in line with the fact that the patterns of customer behaviours are increasingly diverse, as are their lifestyles.

Digital technology offers a more precise approach, allowing marketers a deeper understanding of individual customer behaviours. Thanks to new tools, it is as if we had a million media planners on hand.

And with the significant migration to the use of digital channels via the DTAC app, we have a fantastic opportunity to better know our customers and offer them the right service at the right time.

One of the key factors of success to drive digital growth is our “data scientists”. They are responsible for modelling and analysing insights on customers in order to find the reasons why they don’t show interest in the services we offer and what we should be doing better. Our data scientists collect a billion points of data daily from our customer base of 20 million subscribers.

In addition to contextual marketing, we have used machine learning on image recognition systems in collaboration with DTAC’s sales group, with the aim of verifying SIM registrations. Moreover, we are developing a social listening tool in partnership with the social engagement team and call centre to trace, analyse and measure the feedback from our customers’ voices through DTAC’s Facebook page.

Digitalisation has pushed change faster than ever. We need to think differently, act fast, test and run. If something works, let’s grow it. If something fails, let’s pivot. Our key motto is “fail fast, learn faster”. Honestly, this is the most challenging job I have ever had. Once we reach the top, we celebrate a little, then we have to move on. Life is an endless journey.

Chatsuda Santanont is head of customer value management (CVM) at DTAC.

Sectoral leaders have announced their commitment to strengthen collective action on this agenda, including at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

In an open call, they also encouraged other organisations to join in an initial multi-stakeholder gathering in spring 2018.

Organisations so far involved include: The UNHCR, World Bank, World Food Programme, Consumers International, Omidyar Network, the Linux Foundation, FIDO Alliance, GSMA, Hyperledger, ID2020, Open Identity Exchange, Sovrin Foundation, World Identity Network, Accenture, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Mastercard, Microsoft, Sedicii and Visa.

According to World Bank estimates, about 1.1 billion people lack formal identification. Digital identity and access systems can unlock a range of basic and empowering services for individuals, including financial inclusion, healthcare and

education. Equally, they hold significant promise for helping refugees and displaced populations to access immediate and longer-term services.

Achieving progress will require overcoming significant shared challenges. In addition to coordination challenges such as interoperability, individuals and communities have voiced concerns about flaws and vulnerabilities in existing systems that need to be addressed.

“Digital identities and access systems are foundational elements of our shared digital future. They offer tremendous opportunities for individuals and society, especially for those without formal ID,” said Derek O’Halloran, head of the World Economic Forum System Initiative on Shaping the Future of Digital Economy and Society.

“Additionally, we need to ensure that new approaches are being laid in a sustainable, inclusive and trustworthy manner. Governments, international organisations, civil society and business will all play a critical role in creating this future,” said O’Halloran.

Money and widespread cooperation is necessary to make it work.

“We estimate it will take $12 billion to achieve identification for all,” said Kristalina Georgieva, World Bank CEO and co-chair of the Identification for Development (ID4D) High-Level Advisory Council with Amina J Mohammed, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General.

“The World Bank will secure over $750 million investments in ID-related projects in the next three years and we will strive to mobilise more financing from other sources.

“If we are to reach more than a billion people without proof of identity, we need everyone to work together, including countries, development

partners, UN agencies, the private sector and civil society,” Georgieva said. Multi-stakeholder dialogue is needed to figure out how to pursue the opportunities that come with digital identities and ensure protection of rights in a sustainable and responsible manner. It is critical to deliberate, for example, on who should create, control and benefit from people’s identity information. To empower individuals, identity systems need to enhance security and convenience, preserve privacy and uphold individual rights and freedoms. Adopting shared principles, standards and practices, alongside innovations in technologies and implementation frameworks, will be important to support these goals.

“Individuals have the most to lose if things go wrong with digital ID – so they need control over how their identity is used and by whom, along with

gold-standard data security and solid assurances that it won’t affect access, for example, to

healthcare, welfare support or education, or key

democratic rights to vote or speak out,” said Amanda Long, director-general, Consumers International.

“Without these guarantees, ID schemes will face opposition and fail to fulfil their potential,” she said.

Technology can play a part, but it won’t be enough on its own. “We believe that technologies like blockchain can play a powerful role in creating a secure, portable, personal solution for those living without identity, but technology alone isn’t enough,” said Peggy Johnson, executive vice president of business development at Microsoft. “A challenge of this magnitude requires commitments and collaboration across sectors to develop the shared standards and principles required to deliver lasting impact.”

With the use of digital technologies across the world at an all-time high, and with the adoption of the Internet of Things expected to connect over 200 billion devices to the Internet by 2020, the scope of identity management is also fast expanding to devices and legal entities.

Digital identity is relevant in a wide range of situations that require people and entities to prove who they are – there is no universal,

“one-size-fits-all” approach. This is reflected in the diversity of approaches adopted in various ID and access systems implemented to date. Ongoing

dialogue and coordinated action between stakeholders from across sectors, industries and regions will foster shared understanding of challenges and solutions, and accelerate global progress

The two long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) named Hua Hua and Zhong Zhong were born at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Institute of Neuroscience in Shanghai, and are the fruits of years of research into a cloning technique called somatic cell nuclear transfer.

“The barrier has been broken by this work,” co-author Muming Poo, director of the Institute of Neuroscience of CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, told AFP.

Until now, the technique has been used to clone more than 20 different animal species, including dogs, pigs and cats, but primates have proven particularly difficult.

The birth of the now six and eight-week old macaque babies also raises ethical questions about how close scientists have come to one day cloning humans.

Humans could be cloned by this technique, in principle, said Poo, though this team’s focus was on cloning for medical research.

One day, the approach might be used to create large populations of genetically identical monkeys that could be used for medical research — and avoid taking monkeys from the wild.

“In the United States alone they are importing 30,000 to 40,000 monkeys each year by drug companies,” said Poo.

“Their genetic backgrounds are all variable, they are not identical, so you need a large number of monkeys. For ethical reasons I think having cloned monkey will greatly reduce the (number of) monkeys used for drug tests.”

Monkeys are commonly used in medical research on brain diseases like Parkinson’s, cancer, immune and metabolic disorders.

‘Much failure’ before success

“The method used for these experiments is similar to that used to clone Dolly,” in 1996 but with several “updates,” said William Ritchie, an embryologist on the team that cloned Dolly the sheep at the Roslin Institute of the University of Edinburgh.

The process involves removing the nucleus from a healthy egg, and replacing it with another nucleus from another type of body cell. The clone becomes the same as the creature that donated the replacement nucleus.

“We tried several different methods, but only one worked,” said senior author Qiang Sun, Director of the Nonhuman Primate Research Facility at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Neurosciences.

“There was much failure before we found a way to successfully clone a monkey.”

Adult donor cells were attempted, but those clones died within hours of birth.

What worked as replacement nuclei were cells that came from fetal connective tissue.

Poo said it took first author Zhen Liu, a postdoctoral fellow, three years to perfect the procedure.

“The SCNT procedure is rather delicate, so the faster you do it, the less damage to the egg you have, and Dr Liu has a green thumb for doing this.”

Ethical questions

Other monkeys have been cloned in the past, by a different and simpler technique called embryo splitting, which mimics how twins arise naturally.

The first primate ever cloned this way was Tetra, a rhesus monkey born in 1999.

Embryo splitting can produce a maximum of four at a time, while the new technique could in theory clone far more.

Still, the process that produced Hua Hua and Zhong Zhong remains “very inefficient and hazardous,” because the two babies were the only born from a group of 79 cloned embryos, said British scientists Robin Lovell-Badge, group leader of The Francis Crick Institute.

“While they succeeded in obtaining cloned macaques, the numbers are too low to make many conclusions,” said Lovell-Badge, who was not involved in the study.

“With only two produced it would have been far simpler to just split a normal early embryo into two, to obtain identical twins.”

Nor do the findings, published in the US journal Cell, bring scientists any closer to human cloning, Lovell-Badge argued.

“This clearly remains a very foolish thing to attempt, it would be far too inefficient, far too unsafe, and it is also pointless.”

Darren Griffin, professor of genetics at the University of Kent, greeted the paper with “cautious optimism” and called it “very impressive” from a technical standpoint.

“The first report of cloning of a non-human primate will undoubtedly raise a series of ethical concerns, with critics evoking the slippery slope argument of this being one step closer to human cloning,” he added.

“The benefits of this approach however are clear. A primate model that can be generated with a known and uniform genetic background would undoubtedly be very useful in the study, understanding and ultimately treatment, of human diseases, especially those with a genetic element.”

It can eradicate world poverty. It can save the rainforest. It can protect us from Big Brother.

Such are the magical properties admirers bestow on blockchain, the technology underlying bitcoin, which is its first application.

The revolutionary promise of blockchain, which is touted as the harbinger of the fourth Industrial Revolution, has created a gold-rush mentality, reminiscent of the early days of the Internet. The hype and the Fomo (fear of missing out) factor have led hundreds of companies to unveil so-called blockchain initiatives. Venture capitalists have poured more than US$2 billion (S$2.6 billion) into blockchain ventures, most of it over just the last two years.

Seeking fortune by association, companies in fields as varied as iced tea, fruit juice, furniture, traditional Chinese tea, sports bras and e-cigarettes have rebranded themselves as blockchain companies, and some have witnessed huge run-ups in their share prices as a result. It is not unlike in the early 1990s, when companies were able to reap windfall gains in market capitalisation merely by adding the prefix “E” or the suffix “dot.com” to their names.

Don’t get me wrong. Blockchain is a big deal and its distributed ledger technology has the potential to be transformative. Let us look at some of the advantages.

While the Internet revolutionised the direct person-to-person sharing of data, such as e-mail and voice and instant messaging, the one thing it cannot enable efficiently or safely is the sharing of value. The Internet can’t solve the “double-spend” problem: You can send the same digital image to two people online, but you should not be able to send the same $5 to two people. If you did, money would lose its scarcity and hence its value.

So, if you want to send money or anything else valuable over the Internet, you have to go through an intermediary to manage and verify the transaction, such as a bank or a money transfer service like Western Union, or a broker, all of whom deduct fat fees as commissions. These intermediaries act as institutions of trust, verifying that your money has been sent to another person, deducting it from your account and crediting it to the receiver’s.

With blockchain, peer-to-peer transactions are possible with no intermediary. For example, you can send bitcoin – a virtual currency that uses blockchain – to anybody without a bank being involved and (at least in theory) pay tiny commissions. Blockchain solves the risk of double-spending by lodging every transaction on a time-stamped universal ledger automatically, without the need for an intermediary. By removing the need for an intermediary to verify transactions, blockchain opens up many services and exchanges to people at very low to zero cost.

The implications are said to be potentially game-changing across a staggering range of industries and activities.

Land titles can be put on the blockchain, which means they can never be altered or challenged, which would enable hundreds of millions of the world’s poor to have secure property rights – though enforcement is another matter.

People who generate their own electricity (through, for example, solar panels) can sell it peer-to-peer, without utilities coming in the way.

Commuters can connect with drivers directly on a blockchain without using intermediaries like Uber or Grab.

Stock transactions can be settled within seconds, securely and verifiably, without the need for brokers or cumbersome clearing and settlement systems.

Valuables such as diamonds can be tracked – individual diamonds can be given unique identities which are put on the blockchain. They can then be monitored as they are sold and resold, which prevents fraud or theft. A company called Everledger is already doing this, and extending its service to other valuable items such as jewellery, fine art, watches and other luxury goods.

There are countless other examples of how blockchain can, at least in theory, cut transaction costs, improve efficiencies and reduce fraud.

The blockchain also enables “smart contracts” which are self-executing and secured by digital code.

For example, if two parties agree to the terms of a contract – say, that a payment will be made when a certain item is delivered – the payment is automatically triggered the moment delivery takes place. The contract, which defines rules, obligations and penalties, is on the blockchain, time-stamped and cannot be altered, as if it were cast in stone.

And so, blockchain evangelists tout it as “The Trust Protocol”, suggesting that it eliminates the need for trust; strangers can easily transact with each other with no third parties.

Beyond the hype 

While all of this sounds exciting, it masks a lot of hype.

Take the key issue of trust. While it is true that you can, for example, send cryptocurrency to someone on the other side of the world quickly at low cost without a bank or a traditional money transfer service, this does not mean the problem of trust has been eliminated. It has simply been shifted to somewhere else.

To convert your dollars into bitcoin or any other crypto, you need to go through a cryptocurrency exchange or some other third party. These exchanges can be, and have been, hacked, including the one-time granddaddy of them all, Mt Gox. Your cryptocurrency wallet, which resides in your phone, can also be hacked. Would you trust an unregulated crypto exchange more than you trust your bank?

You also have to trust the blockchain-mining network, through which transactions are verified and cryptocurrencies generated. In theory, the blockchain is decentralised on millions of computers spread across the world, which makes it safe from Big Brother centralised control – which was claimed to be one of its big advantages.

In reality, however, most miners are merged into “pools” or cartels so they can enjoy economies of scale in computing power, and share income. About 80 per cent of the pools are in one country – China. The top four mining pools in the world control more than half of all computing power. This makes blockchain much less safe from manipulation than a truly decentralised mining network.

Nor are transactors in the blockchain anonymous. Rather, they are pseudonymous, identified by electronic addresses. Once somebody makes the link between your pseudonym and you – which can happen when you send money to somebody over the blockchain – your entire transaction activity, past and future, can be known. Such financial transparency is not what many individuals or companies would want.

Any data entered into a blockchain is also subject to human error. In the end, you do have to trust humans.

Blockchain is misused 

There are also signs that blockchain technology is being adopted for its own sake, even though it does not solve the problem it purports to solve. In other words, it is being misused.

Take the case of Kodak, which on Jan 31, will launch a scheme that will supposedly make life easier for the world’s photographers. In partnership with a company called Wenn Digital, it will create a “photo-centric cryptocurrency” on the blockchain which it claims will “empower photographers and agencies to take greater control in image rights management”.

It is an intriguing idea. Currently, you can download and use thousands of photos off the Internet that have no ownership rights. So the photographers who took those photos do not get compensated.

Kodak’s new system, called the KodakOne blockchain, will create an immutable digital ledger for rights ownership for photographers. They upload their photos to the system, and are given the rights to license them.

So every photo can be tracked and if somebody uses a photo, the photographer gets paid instantly. KodakOne will also trawl the Internet 24/7 to identify any unlicensed use of the images and then, according to its press release, “manage the post-licensing process” in order to reward photographers – although it does not specify how.

This apparently ingenious scheme would cut out middlemen like Getty Images and Shutterstock, through which photographers currently sell their work but end up losing 30 per cent or more in commissions.

But here is the catch: People can’t use normal money to pay for the photographs. They will need to use KodakCoin – a new cryptocurrency that Kodak will launch in an ICO on Jan 31. (In an ICO, or initial coin offering, someone offers investors units of a new cryptocurrency or crypto-token in exchange for a service or product.) And who can buy KodakCoin? Only “accredited investors”, defined as people who have at least US$200,000 in income or a net worth of US$1 million, which excludes most people.

The photographers will also be paid in KodakCoin (although Kodak will, of course, take a commission). They will be able to spend it on other (as yet unknown) items that can be bought by KodakCoin. How they will convert it into real money is not clear.

Here is a classic example of the misuse of the blockchain. It is not the solution to the problem of matching buyers to sellers of photographs. An ICO is not needed to do this. The whole scheme looks suspiciously like Kodak just wanted to jump on the blockchain bandwagon. Its long-beleaguered stock price jumped 44 per cent on the day of its announcement, which means investors bought into the hype, just as they did in the early Internet days.

Blockchain technology holds out promise, but it is far from flawless. It is clunky, geeky and user-unfriendly. Environmentally, it is a disaster. Just one application – bitcoin – consumes more electricity than all of Ireland. Imagine what a thousand applications would do.

Maybe it will evolve to be useful, practical and environmentally friendly. But we are still a long way from witnessing its true benefits. What we are witnessing now is mostly hype

The direction was revealed at the annual national meeting of the post and telecommunications sector, which began yesterday in Vientiane, led by Minister of Post and Telecommunications Dr Thansamay Kommasith.

“The public sector will use emails with our domain system such as dot la (.la) in the coming years,” Dr Thansamay said.

He explained that using the local domain would help identify the source of a particular email and this would result in more efficient communications management.

According to Dr Thansamay, the domain is being used within the ministry, while similar domains for emails have been set up by the ministry as a pilot project in other ministries.

The Ministry of Post and Telecommunications has also established an electronic document management system which is being used within the ministry.

“The ministry has completed setting up and piloting the use of email and video conferencing for the public sector in supporting the modernisation of public administration or e-government, which is needed in these modern times,” Dr Thansamay said.

Aside from extending the use of the local domain, the ministry has asked Microsoft to consider incorporating the Lao font “Phetsarath” into the Windows operating system and MS Office 365 to enable the automatic use of Lao language online and in accordance with the protocols of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

During the meeting, Dr Thansamay delivered a report highlighting the achievements of the post and telecommunications sector over the past year, including progress in enacting laws and regulations related to the sector, as well as developments in information and communications infrastructure, and personnel.

The passing of the Law on Radio Frequency and Law on Data Protection, which were approved by the National Assembly and announced as promulgated by the President, were major achievements of the sector last year.

Some 91 percent of villages throughout the country have access to a telephone signal, which has allowed more people to access information and communications technology.

The ministry last year completed the extension of the National Internet Centre to connect telecommunication service providers within the country with those in other countries to ensure full international connection.

A cloud computing centre with the capacity to accommodate 1,300 servers was set up last year, with 200 websites using the service.

Laos now has 75,000 kilometres of fibre optic cabling reaching 148 districts in 18 provinces.

There are 4.7 million telephone and mobile phone subscribers and 2.4 million internet accounts across the country, with internet users making up 37.5 percent of the population.

China has made significant strides in port transportation by using self-driving trucks to transport containers at Zhuhai Port in Guangdong province from Tuesday as part of its efforts to realize an unmanned smart port system in the future.

The domestically-made truck looks like a normal one but does not need any drivers. It is used to move containers between the stocking area and the container gantry crane at a standard speed of about 30 kilometres per hour.

Based on artificial intelligence technology developed by Shanghai-based startup Westwell Lab, the 18-metre-long vehicle can automatically navigate, calculate the best route, avoid barriers and deal with an emergency by slowing down, braking or taking a detour.

Tan Limin, CEO of Westwell, said the self-driving truck is “nearly 100 per cent safe”. Guided by the Beidou Navigation Satellite System, sensors and radars, it can reach an accuracy level of within two centimetres.

He said the self-driving technology for port transportation is more difficult than that for passenger vehicles as some roads in the container stocking area are almost the same width as that of a truck. This makes navigation difficult, even for experienced drivers.

Transport advances are necessary at ports as container throughput at China’s ports has risen in recent years, putting immense strain on existing transport resources and drivers, he said.

A medium-sized port with a throughput capacity of 2 million 20 foot equivalent units needs about 200 container trucks and four drivers for each truck. The annual pay for each driver is about 60,000 yuan ($9,372) to 120,000 yuan.

Many cities in China, such as Qingdao in Shandong province and Tianjin, are competing to build smart ports. Traditional automatic ports need to modify many facilities, such as road resurfacing and inserting transponder for vehicle navigation, but Tan believes their smart port solutions are much easier and cheaper to apply.

In addition, he added, driverless trucks are four to five times cheaper than automatic guided vehicles.

Ou Huisheng, chairman of Zhuhai Port Group, estimated that by using dozens of self-driving trucks, it would be able to save labor costs equivalent to hundreds of employees.

He said Zhuhai Port will expand its cooperation with Westwell to build a completely intelligent port in the future.

Despite the launch of the self-driving trucks, a “safety supervisor” is still needed when the vehicle is in operation.