Facebook, Line and Google, which owns YouTube, were among the participants in the Multi-Stakeholder Regional Workshop on Social Media.

More than 2.4 billion people use social media, and about half of them live in the Asia Pacific region.

Thailand’s lawmakers are considering six bills related to digital technology. Two of the more controversial bills, the Cybersecurity Bill and the Personal Data Protection Bill, are in the second and third readings at the National Legislative Assembly.

The workshop’s organisers said the gathering had devised the best practice for helping people use social media under good governance principles.

Sheen Handoo, public policy manager for APAC at Facebook, said Facebook has 2.3 billion users and that the company has determined community standards and invested in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning as well as employing 30,000 people to monitor content for inappropriate information. They are working to uphold community standards in nine categories, such as terrorism, child safety, and hate speech, Handoo said.

Jake Lucchi, head of content and AI, public policy, for Google Asia Pacific, said that Google has implemented community standards with a focus on freedom of expression with regulation. Every minute, 400 minutes of videos are uploaded to YouTube.

By late last year, Google had removed 7.8 million video clips that violated community standards. Some 75 per cent of them were removed before they were watched. They made up 1 per cent of all videos on YouTube.

Taimu Negishi, public policy strategist at Line Corporation, said the platform was focusing on privacy. Every message sent is encrypted and kept in the company’s system in Japan.

Key market

Thailand is the second largest market for Line. The country has 50 million mobile Internet users, and 44 million of them use Line. Each user spends an average of 63 minutes a day on the platform.

Line has collaborated with educational institutions to train students and others in media literacy since 2014.

This year, IT spending in Thailand is estimated to come in at Bt452 billion. The hardware market will lead the way with spending of Bt308 billion, followed by IT services on Bt100 billion and software Bt43.8 billion.

Prapussorn Pechkaew, a senior market analyst at IDC Thailand, said hardware would account for 66.98 per cent of spending, followed by IT serves with 23 per cent and software 10.02 per cent.

The IT market growth this year is estimated to increase 6.53 per cent compared with last year. This year, IT services are forecast to have the highest growth in spending at 7.99 per cent, followed by software on 7.6 per cent, and hardware at Bt5.92 per cent, compared with last year.

Prapussorn said the factors that will drive IT spending are the uptake of new technologies by enterprises, as they boost their capabilities in cloud computing, cyber security, robotics and artificial intelligence (AI). The government’s Thailand 4.0 scheme is also playing a role.

The top 10 technologies that will spur market growth over the next three years “are those relating to the digital economy, digital native, expansion to the edge, AppDev revolution, new developed class, digital innovation and growth through specialisation, AI the new UI (user interface), expanding/scaling trust and consolidation and multi-cloud”, Prapussorn said.

For the digital economy, by 2022, over 61 per cent of Thailand’s GDP will be digitalised, with growth in every industry driven by digitally enhanced offerings, operations, and relationships. This trend will see US$72 billion spent on IT-related purchases from 2019 to 2022.

With the digital-native IT, by 2022 around 60 per cent of Thailand’s IT spending will be on third platform technologies, as over 30 per cent of all enterprises are building digital-native IT environments to thrive in the digital economy.

Under expand to the edge, by 2022, Thailand’s organisations will increase their cloud deployments, including those for edge computing, and 25 per cent of endpoint devices and systems will execute AI algorithms.

By 2022, the AppDev revolution will account for around 70 per cent of Thailand’s new apps and will feature micro-services architecture that will improve the ability to design, debug, update and leverage RTF codes. As well, around 25 per cent of all production apps will be cloud-native.

The new developer class is a new class of professional developers producing code without custom scripting. This will expand the developer population by 20 per cent in Thailand, accelerating the digital transformation by 2024

Regarding the explosion in digital innovation, IDC says that from 2018 to 2023 4 million new logical apps will be created in Thailand. They will benefit from new tools and platforms.

By 2022, growth through specialisation will see around 15 per cent of public cloud computing based on non-x86 processors (including quantum) in Thailand. By that year, organisations will spend more on vertical software as a service (SaaS) apps than horizontal apps.

Under AI the new UI, by 2024 AI-enabled user interfaces and process automation will replace one-third of today’s screen-based apps in Thailand. By 2022, around 20 per cent of enterprises will use conversational speech tech for customer engagement.

In the area of expanding and scaling trust, by 2023 around 25 per cent of servers will encrypt data at rest and in motion in Thailand and over 20 per cent of security alerts will be handled by AI-powered automation and 3.5 million people will have blockchain-based digital identities.

By 2022 the top-four cloud mega-platforms will host 80 per cent of infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) deployments in Thailand. By 2023, around 70 per cent of Thailand’s top 100 organisations will mitigate look-in through multi-cloud, hybrid technologies and tools.

“We foresee a steady growth in the adoption of emerging technologies in the country mainly because Thailand is working to improve its economic growth by shifting its economy from an industry-driven country to one that is driven by high-tech innovations,” said Prapussorn.

It wants to increase the number of startups moving from seed funding to series A financing and on to series B funding. It believes that with this support, some startups of unicorn status will emerge in the next three to five years.

Startups under the A Academy programme of dtac accelerate are in line to receive funding from Google, 500 Startups and venture capital funds in Asia.

The programme helps startups to gain the chance to secure US$100 million in funding, with the support enabling one of them to become the first Thai unicorn.

Sompoat Chansomboon, managing director of dtac accelerate, said the prospect of increased investments in startups would be a game changer. “If there are a lot more series A and series B startups in Thailand it will make a greater impact for the benefit of the country’s economy,” said Sompoat.

Less than 10 per cent of Thai startups have moved on from seed funding to a series A round. “But 25 per cent of dtac accelerate startups have made this progression,” said Sompoat.

The A Academy programme will help create opportunities for Thai startups that are stuck in the Series A bottleneck, said Sompoat. Now, they can get closer to funding sources in Asia and other parts of the world.

The A Academy will help these startups reach the series A round of financing by focusing on their preparations for a mega-funding round, connections with customers, and the adoption of advanced technologies, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), in their operations.

In this programme, the leading venture capital companies of Asia – including 500 Tuktuks, Golden Gate Ventures, Line Ventures, KK Fund, and Monk’s Hill Ventures – are invited to share their knowledge about fundraising, financial management, and other matters.

With the collaboration with Google Launchpad Accelerator, the programme makes use of Google’s executive workshop called the Leaders Lab to provide training for startup teams. Experts in machine learning and AI from Amazon Web Service and Google Cloud will also contribute.

Elsewhere in dtac’s startup efforts, the dtac accelerate batch 7 offers a course called Incubator Track, for startups that have ideas but have not progressed to operations, and another called Accelerator Track, which is aimed at startups seeking rapid growth.

The goal of dtac accelerate batch 7 is to look for businesses that adopt technologies to develop solutions for a variety of industries, such as healthcare, agriculture, real estate, energy, e-commerce, tourism and insurance.

Alexandra Reich, chief executive officer of Total Access Communication PLC (dtac). said dtac accelerate is the key to dtac’s mission to go beyond connectivity and build strong industry ecosystems that can support 5G sustainably.

“As startups constitute critical building blocks to the industry verticals we are invested in, such as smart farming and smart vehicles, dtac accelerate also supports our internal transformation very directly, providing mentorship for our employees to embrace more agile ways of work,” said Reich.

“It depends on the requirements of the telecom operators but we will be ready to bring 5G to Myanmar over the next few years,” he said yesterday at a media workshop entitled “Future direction of ICT in Myanmar”.

Zhu said the consumer business would continue to drive Huawei Myanmar’s growth this year, as Huawei smartphones “are the most loved” by local people.

“Devices are the key driver of our growth in Myanmar because half the population love to use Huawei smartphones, while another brand of ours [Honor], is also doing well here,” he said.

“Our smartphones are doubtlessly the most popular in Myanmar. Everybody knows Huawei, and Myanmar is the first overseas market where Honor smartphones have arrived. It is clear evidence of our popularity here.”

In addition to surging demand for Huawei devices, the company’s enterprise business and cloud business are set to accelerate the firm’s growth in Myanmar, provided that more and more companies are willing to invest in digital transformation.

“We also foresee a promising future for carrier business, as Huawei plays a key role in ensuring stabilised 4G services for Myanmar people in cooperation with all the four telecom operators here,” he said.

At the workshop, Zhu reiterated the firm’s commitment to improve digital literacy in Myanmar. As part of Huawei’s efforts to educate the people, media workshops will be held quarterly, with different ICT topics to be presented at each. Zhu encouraged participants to share their opinions and pose questions to the trainers.

The first workshop started yesterday and ends today.

“As the world continues to digitise, changing the way people work, learn, live and experience everyday services, it is important that the public is informed about the latest ICT developments that are impacting them,” he said.

As a resource for current affairs, the media plays a crucial role in raising the awareness on the developments and technology-related issues, through informed and in-depth coverage, Zhu said.

“To address the knowledge gap in ICT, we are conducting media workshops, encompassing technology topics such as cloud computing and the Internet of Things, while providing a constructive platform for journalists to voice their views on the state of ICT growth in Myanmar,” he said.

 In 2019, ETDA will appoint a new CEO and take new responsibilities as a regulator under the new Electronic Transactions Act.

ETDA will function as the secretariat of the Electronic Transactions Committee to prepare the Electronic Transaction Strategic Plan and the Infrastructure Standards Development Plan, regulate business related to electronic transactions, and analyse and certify a variety of standards.

“When considering the roles of government authorities and the scope of the current digital economy-related laws, the most urgent challenge for Thailand to transform to a digital economy and digital government is the removal of overlapping responsibilities among different authorities. It is evident that laws governing a number of government authorities overlap,” said Surangkana.

“According to the Electronic Transactions Act, which passed the National Legislative Assembly in January, ETDA is to determine the standards supporting electronic transactions as digital identification and see to their appropriate regulation. In setting standards, ETDA might become entangled with other organisations supervising open government and data sharing, including public information disclosure.

“ETDA will focus on providing recommendations and standards in the context of promotion, while maintaining a secure environment for data protection and security as defined by other laws,” she said.

The need to raise the qualifications of service providers and improve coordination among the technical systems of each service provider is considered critical information infrastructure which can affect confidence and trust in electronic transactions.

“ETDA, as a digital transformation facilitator, will be the organisation which supports the use of innovation for electronic transactions in management and services by the public and private sectors. ETDA will explore digital technologies, devise necessary recommendations as well as develop prototypes and sandboxes so that the public and private organization management and service provisions remain effective, efficient, secure, reliable, appropriate, and convenient to users in the ecosystem,” she added.

Surangkana said that ETDA intends to enhance digital-technology competence among Thai policy-level executives from the public and private sectors so that they can stay abreast of continual technology transformation and disruption.

Digital transformation is now driving demand in three areas: IT service, multi-cloud, and cybersecurity.

According to IDC and Gartner, IT-services, IT optimisation, implementation and management, are expected to see a compounded average growth rate (CAGR) of 7.6 per cent in 2022.

The local cybersecurity market as a whole is forecast to achieve CAGR of 12 per cent in 2025, in compliance with security laws while a 30-per-cent surge is projected for multi-cloud service worldwide by 2021.

In view of surging demand, UIH managing director Sunti Medhavikul said the company had launched three new business units providing solution integration, security service, and cloud services and data centre in addition to the two existing ones for network services and international services.

“The new units were launched early this year. We are now ready for the set-up of an intelligent network infrastructure to streamline the digital transformation process of our clients,” said Sunti.

He said UIH aims to be an intelligent digital infrastructure service provider, offering interconnection, integration and innovations.

From 2016 to 2018, the company invested Bt2 billion to upgrade and expand its network infrastructure at home and abroad, especially in Myanmar.

The new network infrastructure is MEFCE2.0-certified, allowing connections with other networks in all countries.

“Our infrastructure is now compatible with the latest technologies such as blockchain, internet of things, and artificial intelligent. It is an enterprise-grade open platform that is flexible, scaleable, and manageable with high capacity and availability,” said Subti.

The company plans to grow at a CAGR of 10 per cent till 2021. For this year, contributions from the three new units are expected to make up 20 per cent of the company’s total revenue, before reaching 40 per cent by 2021.

Up to 90 per cent the company’s revenue came from the domestic market last year, according to Sunti.

“More revenue will come from the new services given their growth potential,” he added.

The company may further invest around Bt500 million a year from 2019 to 2021 for network infrastructure work in the Eastern Economic Corridor and other locations where its customers are located.

With multi-cloud and data centre being high-potential segments, UIH now has two data centres with direct link to 22 others.

The data centres are average in size as it believed customers prefer multi-locations.

Cloud HM, one of the new unit, offers multi-cloud services and has also teamed up with global cloud service providers AWS and Microsoft Azure.

To offer intelligent solutions to customers, UIH is looking to innovations from startups in deep technology, where it has invested through the company’s investment arm BCH Ventures.

Adobe has made a commitment to small businesses in Thailand that it will help them improve their competitiveness through better design, including through bringing together designers and marketers.

Michael Stoddart, director of market development for Asia Pacific, says the longtime software developer will improve the local experience with digital software, leading to a positive business impact.

Digital experience is important to commercial business, he says, and Adobe views collaboration between designers and other business departments as creating the potential for a leg up on the competition. And Adobe has the digital tools to make that happen, he says.

“Adobe is a ‘digital experience’ company that delivers digital experiences digitally,” said Stoddart.

It is great time for design, because customers and the world in general understand that good experiences increase revenue and impact the bottom line, he says. Large companies in Southeast Asia and in Thailand realise that their relationships with customers depend on great user experiences, and that those experiences are managed and produced by designers.

In the past, you could just have something made to look good, but now that everything has gone digital, designers think in particular ways – through the “design thinking process”. Designers today see that they can help a business not just by making a pretty website, but also by considering how their client’s customers find out about the business. They consider how they can get the potential customers to go to the website, how to treat them when they are there, how to deliver the services, and how to treat them after they purchase and engage with the designer.

Stoddart points to a McKinsey Quarterly report, “The Business Value of Design” from October 2018, which found that a company that placed value on design could get a 12 to 16 per cent better year on year return. While that is not huge, he said, in a competitive market the better designed websites and apps can increase the return for shareholders.

Companies are starting to appreciate the value of design, says Stoddart. Design used to be how something looked, but now is about how something works. It does not just make something pretty, but creates value for the business.

“We want to enable designers to be good designers across a broader range of design skills, such as print, digital, video, user experience, 3D and so on, by removing some of the burdens of production,” said Stoddart.

In Southeast Asia and Thailand, the digital economy is exploring opportunities and how digital transformation can help create success through good user design, he says. It is a great time for Adobe and for the Thai marketplace.

Marketing faces the challenge, called the content philosophy problem, of requiring a lot of content. Personalisation is driving the content philosophy to design in 100 or 200 different pieces, and this in turn requires that a website or app having several different designs. Artificial intelligence and machine learning can help solve the content philosophy problem, which is being driven by marketing. To solve the challenge, the marketer needs to see the designer as a business partner, says Stoddart.

“We expect anybody can be creative and can find some value from Adobe Creative Cloud.

“Tools for the Creative Cloud are not just Photoshop and Illustrator for designing; they are also Spark for the marketer and Rush for the video maker. Creative Cloud is for the professional person who use Adobe to make content, and also for anybody who needs to express their creative idea or to create content such as a marketer, businessman, builder, architect, engineer, lawyer, student, and so on,” said Stoddart.

The priority for Adobe is social media marketing, because designs now have an immediate impact on business. Design is not just about having a well-designed website, it is a well-designed experience and can give 2- to 3-per cent better income. Marketers are people who implement designs in business. In terms of design, the marketing part of business could be a commercial using a creative professional.

Combining the professional creative team and the marketing team is a significant part of many organisations. The digital organisation requires training and resources to generate the creative output.

“Under Adobe Creative Cloud, we have a wide range of products that help every part of a commercial unit of the organisation to produce creative designs for the business. The first challenge is to convince [the decision-makers] that design can help business performance. The other challenge is to not use Adobe’s tools in the same way as in the past. Adobe is not just Photoshop and Illustrator, previous iterations of which were difficult to use and costly. Photoshop is one product of the 23 in the Creative Cloud – they can’t be complex, they are easy to use and give powerful outcomes,” said Stoddart.

A lot of people might think that Adobe is difficult to use, and it is a big challenge for Adobe to reverse this. Adobe has tools that are really easy to use both on the smartphone and desktop computer.

“We need to build brand community and to create applications. We need to make it easy for everybody using our tools; behind this is 35 years of trust in Adobe for doing the creative things,” said Stoddart.

The number-one trend now is video. Some people think video is hard. Adobe’s Rush tool for creating video, is not just for social media marketing – video can be created and used across the business for better communication.

“We are the company that’s completely digital, we know out customers, we have data on everything we do.”

Adobe is not just the Photoshop software company, it is a partner to help businesses find the time to build value. It has a consulting team to help businesses benefit from using its tools to creative a business impact, such as improving email marketing and improving communication and results between designers and marketers.

In Thailand, Adobe is looking to expand their local partners to help penetrate the market, he says.

“We allow the individual to drive digital transformation through the community, and hope they become an evangelist for digital transformation,” said Stoddart.

“We use an AI system called Sensei to make our software work faster and to allow our customers to work faster. Adobe Sensei further automates customer experience management, which helps retailers work smarter and faster,” said Stoddart.

For example, Adobe Creative Cloud and Adobe Analytics Cloud enable retailers to more easily personalise ads based on a potential customer’s shopping behaviour, loyalty programme status and more. Also, the new Adobe Sensei-powered capabilities enable retailers to manage, optimise and report on search ad campaigns specifically for retail promotions and events.

Our complex food chain – already stressed by climate change and a finite water supply – will be further tested. To meet the demands of this crowded future, we will need new technologies and devices, scientific breakthroughs – and entirely new ways of thinking about food safety and security.

IBM researchers around the world are already working on solutions at every stage of the food chain. They are helping farmers maximise crop yields and developing ways to curb the epidemic of waste that destroys 45 per cent of our food supply. Our scientists are working to create a safety net to catch pathogens and contaminants before they make people sick. And they’re inventing ways to keep plastic out of our landfills and oceans.

Our researchers inspire us to imagine what else could be possible five years from now. When the eight-billionth person is born on Earth, she will enter a world more connected, more interdependent and more responsive to change than the one her parents ever imagined. This is the future that awaits us all.

Since 2006, IBM Research has been issuing the “5 in 5” tech predictions. The 5 in 5 allows the company to showcase five groundbreaking scientific innovations from IBM with the potential to change the way people live, work and interact over the next five years. Here’s a summary of the predictions from IBM scientists this year.

From seed …

Farming’s digital doubles will help feed a growing population using less resources.

How do you give a farmer who has never set foot in a bank access to credit? By digitising and

capturing all aspects of agriculture, from the quality of the soil to the skills of the tractor driver to the price of melon sold at the market.

It’s known as a “Digital Twin”, and within the next five years, using AI we can use this data to accurately forecast crop yields, which in turn will give banks and financial institutions the data points they need to provide credit to help farmers expand – money does grow on trees after all.

To harvest …

Spoiler alert: Blockchain will prevent more food from going to waste.

Within five years, we’ll eliminate many of the costly unknowns in the food supply chain. From farmers to grocery suppliers, each participant in the supply chain will know exactly how much to plant, order and ship. Food loss will diminish greatly and the produce that ends up in consumers’ carts will be fresher – when blockchain technology, IoT devices, and AI algorithms join forces.

To shelf …

Culture club: Mapping the microbiome will protect us from bad bacteria.

Within five years, food safety inspectors around the world will gain a new superpower: the ability to use millions of microbes to protect what we eat. These microbes – some healthy for human consumption, others not – are regularly introduced into foods at farms, factories and grocery stores.

Thanks to a new technique that enables us to analyse their genetic make-up cost effectively, microbes will tell us a lot about the safety of what we consume.

To table…

Dinner plate detectives: AI sensors will detect foodborne pathogens at home.

Within five years, the world’s farmers, food processors, and grocers – along with its billions of home cooks – will be able to detect dangerous contaminants effortlessly in their food. All they’ll need is a cell phone or a countertop with AI sensors. IBM researchers are creating powerful, portable AI sensors that can detect foodborne pathogens anywhere and everywhere they might turn up. These mobile bacteria sensors could dramatically increase the speed of a pathogen test from days to seconds, allowing individuals up and down the food chain to detect the existence of harmful E coli or Salmonella before it becomes an outbreak.

To trash …

Plastic surgery: A radical new recycling process will breathe new life into old plastic.

In five years, the disposal of trash and the creation of new plastics will be completely transformed. Everything from milk cartons to cookie containers to grocery bags and cheese cloths will be recyclable, and polyester manufacturing companies will be able to take in refuse and turn it into something useful.

This transition will be powered by innovations like VolCat, a catalytic chemical process that digests certain plastics (called polyesters) into a substance that can be fed directly back into plastic manufacturing machines in order to make new products.

Patama Chantaruck is the vice president for Indochina expansion and managing director of IBM Thailand.