Officials to ‘think digitally’ 

The so-called Digital Transformation Programme was launched recently by the Thailand Digital Government Academy (TDGA) of the Electronic Government Agency (Public Organisation) and provides training sessions and workshops for government officials.
The programme saw workshops piloted at five state agencies: the Revenue Department, the Employment Department, the Business Development Department, the National Health Security Office, and the Board of Investment.
Under the programme, the participants learn how to change their mindset to “think digitally” or, in other words, like the founders of a startup. The focus is citizen-centric in a bid to maximise the potential for digital technology to improve public services.
The five agencies in the pilot programme have also developed their own prototype services.
Among them is the Revenue Department with an e-donation service that uses QR code technology.
The programme launch serves part of the government's plan to enable state officials to maximise digital technology skills to drive the country towards digital transformation.
The Digital Economy and Society (DE) Minister, Pichet Durongkaveroj, yesterday said that the government would continue to promote its digital transformation policy in all state agencies this year. It has also promoted the use of Big Data to benefit the public.
Under the Big Data concept, organisations will analyse the voluminous data that comes in each day with the aim of leading to a desired insight.
The Cabinet recently appointed a committee to guide policy on the use of Big Data, data centres and cloud computing.
Part of its role is to ask all the ministries to examine if they have Big Data, what they want to do with the data, and how to apply and analyse such data for the public benefit.
The committee is chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Prajin Juntong. Among the committee members are all the permanent secretaries of the ministries.