NBC backs ICT awards project

Thai tech companies are invited to submit their innovative tech products to compete in 19-20 categories.
The winner of each category will become the country’s representative to compete with teams from 20 countries at the Asia-Pacific ICT Alliance Awards (APICTA 2016) in Taiwan in December.
Adisak Limparungpatanakij, chief executive officer of NBC, said the corporation would promote the competition and the competitors with a TV show covering TICTA.
Programmes including “18 distinguished apps” and “App Analyser” will be aired on Nation TV at Channel 22.
Nation TV will telecast the announcement of the winners in all categories.
It will also allow the TICTA winners to produce TV programmes for APICTA 2016 in Taiwan.
Nation TV aims to support the innovators and creative developer, especially in the area of technology.
It runs three to four programmes on technology.
“We really believe that TICTA benefits innovators, developers and creators and we want to be a part of this support,” Adisak said.
“Now, during the submission period, we’ve already put the TICTA TV show in the ‘Business Talk’ programme. Then we will expand the scope of the programme to support all the competition and competitors.” The programme will carry live reporting and engage audiences to participate in the competition through allowing them to vote in scores for the competitors in cooperation with the judges.
Thanachart Numnonda, president of ATCI, said this year was the biggest for TICTA since its inception 12 years ago.
The big change was the collaboration with Nation TV to amplify the event to the masses.
TICTA is designed to be the first runway for Thai developers to get in the media spotlight and to get them to the regional competition APICTA.
In the past, many well-known software and tech firms were winners at both the local and regional levels, such as Builk Asia, Claim Di (formerly known as Arunsawad Dot Com), StockRadars, CT Asia, Comanche and Netka System.
Normally, two to three teams of the 19-20 TICTA winners bring APICTA awards back to the country each year.
The categories of TICTA winners that often win at APICTA are hospitality and finance.
Besides Nation TV as the media partner, what’s new for TICTA this year is the pitching session in APICTA to encourage all TICTA winners to present their products and business models not only to the judges, but also to investors.
“This year, there will be a half day at APICTA to get all the competitors to pitch,” Thanachart said.
“The three strengths of most start-ups overseas are that they have innovation with intellectual-property rights, they already have been funded and they already have revenue,” he said.
This year, TICTA hopes to encourage Thai start-ups to get a lot more awards at APICTA, while the number of countries joining APICTA this year has increased to 20, including latecomers like Japan.