Venturing into THE DEEP

With the attempt to increase the competitive capability of the country’s industries, CMKL University this year set up a major project to drive deep-tech training and expand work-based research, as well as to offer its first PhD and master’s degree courses. 
CMKL University is a collaborative initiative of Carnegie Mellon University and King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang (KMITL), established late last year to offer master’s and PhD degrees in electrical and computer engineering.
In its latest move, the university has announced it will expand its offerings with short-courses offering deep training in key potential technologies, and to continue to collaborate with the large corporates to increase their competitiveness through improving productivity efficiency. 
Supan Tungjitkusolmun, president of CMKL University, said the mission of CMKL University is to contribute to raising the country’s competitiveness through empowering the capabilities of large corporates as well as to build vast deep-tech human resources. 
It is now planning short training courses in artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, data analytics, and cybersecurity, to be offered to the public with an aim to create a significant number of skilled workers for the future.
The school this year joined hands with the Electronic Transaction Development Agency (ETDA)
to teach cybersecurity training courses.
Supan said they aim to offer deep-tech training courses to the general public as well as tailor-made course for agencies and organisations. The public component will be for executives, deep-tech staff, operations workers and university students. The tailor-made course would be calibrated for private-sector organisations and government agencies.
By 2019, it aims to train 200 to 300 people, using three to four organisations to deliver the tailor-made courses. 
The school is also committed to expand its collaboration with the large corporates for work-based research. The idea behind work-based research is to pick a real-world problem or need and to conduct research and development to address the painpoint but also to empower business efficiency to achieve the company’s goals.
“Our role is to be a technology enabler for the corporates, and we have offered this kind of service since March this year,” said Supan.
Since being established, the school has worked with Thai Beverage Public Co Ltd (ThaiBev) and Betagro Group. Both are five-year collaborations. 
The goal for the ThaiBev link-up is to improve logistics efficiency and productivity, as well as to create new products and services. Needed technologies include data analytics, artificial intelligent and machine learning. 
Meanwhile, Betagro Group’s goal for work-based research is to empower its smart-farm strategy. It needs technology to increase product safety while also reducing costs. Among the technologies they need are Internet of Things (IoT), cloud services and Big Data analytics. 
The collaborations are done under a team-driven approach, with teams composed of both PhD and master’s students along with lecturers and researchers from both KMITL and Carnegie Mellon University, together with human resources from the companies.
“We all work together from zero until we achieve the goal – that why it needs (five years) time in collaboration. We are all needed to create an impact to the business in order to finally impact the country’s competitiveness,” said Supan.
Moreover, CMKL University has also joined hands with ETDA to conduct co-research and development in cybersecurity and forensic data analytics. Its one-year project started in mid-2018.
“This kind of collaboration is to create a real impact on every dimension, including building the deep-tech human resource capabilities, addressing the real problems and needs of organisations, and creating an impact on the country’s competitive advantage as a whole,” said Supan.
By 2019, CMKL University aims to double the number of collaborations between organisations and agencies both in the private and government sectors. For example, it is now planning work with Money Table around blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies.

Applications now open
Applications are now open for PhD and master’s students at CMKL University. Applications are being taken until December, with the semester starting in August 2019. 
Students enrolled in both the five-year doctorate and the two-year master’s programmes will take classes in both Pittsburgh and Thailand equally. It aims for 25 MS students and 10 PhD students for its first semester. 
CMKL University is positioning itself as a world-class research and education platform for disruptive innovation that offers unique hands-on education and transformative research. By applying Carnegie Mellon’s globally acclaimed research and education programmes within a regional context, the school aims to tackle challenges that will drive the future development of Thailand and the Asean community.
Supan said the role of the university is to work with the private sector in search of their painpoints and needs, and then to together set goals and work toward a completed outcome.
Orathai Sangpetch, CMKL’s vice president of research and strategy, says the school’s role is to create the ready-to-use talents for the country and to build the knowledge needed to solve the problems of industry and other businesses. 
“The PhD/MS programmes will address long-term problems, while short-course training is to address short-term problems,” said Orathai.
She said students and others who pass through CMKL University will become super researcher who can address the real-world problems of the sector, and function as deep-tech experts in electrical and computer engineering.
“We have set up CMKL University as the platform to create and develop advanced tech talents for the country. 
“We are not only an educational institute,” said Orathai.
The inter-university collaboration will expand the human resources capacity for both Carnegie Mellon University and King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang.
“CMKL University aims to be the hub for all of Southeast Asia, not only for Thailand. We plan to attract students from all countries in the region to study with us,” said Orathai.
Lastly, to achieve the university’s goal it sees a need to host an annual tech summit in order to create awareness and build knowledge and talent capability. The “CMKL Tech Summit 2018” will kick off on December 13. It aims to boost the tech knowledge of individuals and corporates to better deal with disruption in the era of digital transformation. 
Individuals and organisations at the summit will have a chance to upgrade themselves and remove momentary pain points. The main concept will focus on artificial intelligence (AI), making this event the first AI flagship seminar in Thailand.
“The main problems facing corporates in this digital transformation era are the lack of talent in the tech field and the lack of understanding in technology adaptation,” said Supan.
“As the leading technology university to collaborate with the world’s first AI software developer – Carnegie Mellon University – we decided to hold the seminar to help enhance the know-how and the competitiveness for both corporates and individuals.” 
CMKL Tech Summit 2018 has gathered experts across the range of technologies and AI from the private and educational sectors from Thailand and worldwide. They include Thai Beverage Pcl and Betagro Pcl. Also sharing insights will be Dr Surakiart Sathirathai, the board chair of CMKL University, and a team of professors from Carnegie Mellon University.