Regional Director of Central and Eastern Regions Digital Economy Promotion Agency (depa) Dr Apichatbut Rodyang has encouraged farmers to use digitalisation to increase income and reduce expenses. Apichatbut explained that depa has a mechanism to promote Thai digital technology entrepreneurs and startups and help them specifically to nurture green, agri-business and agri-food projects to drive value chain growth and development.
Lectures and exchange experiences on upgrading farmers and agribusiness by applying technology and digital innovation are ways that this development and innovation can be fostered. The Digital Economy Promotion Agency is supporting the financing and enhancement of women agribusiness entrepreneurs.
The TECHHUNT platform provides technology and digital innovation examples for farmers to enhance their business. The digital platform offers more than 1,000 products and services to help farmers increase their income and reduce expenses significantly.
Community enterprises and entrepreneurs of small and medium enterprises can choose the technology suitable for their business. The step will strengthen farmers’ products and services in the agricultural industry.
In a separate meeting, depa and the Department of Agricultural Extension discussed the implementation of the project to promote the application of technology and digital innovation for farmers and entrepreneurs. The project will use the digital coupon measure to apply technology and digital innovation (depa mini–Transformation Voucher). The Department of Agricultural Extension has been approved as a joint service agency in the project.
The meeting also discussed the collaboration between depa and the Department of Agricultural Extension to encourage 170 farmers to apply technology and digital innovation. The project aims to use automatic watering technology with IoT and integrate data between the Department of Agriculture, depa, digital service providers, and farmers to create agricultural Big Data through the City data platform. The platform will benefit the Department of Agricultural Extension staff and the local farmers’ council office and promote farmers to raise and further enhance the efficiency of the Thai agricultural sector.
Meanwhile, Depa’s Eastern Branch offered 50 digital coupons for farmers and 30 for community enterprises in Chonburi, Rayong, Chachoengsao, Chanthaburi, Prachinburi, and Trat. The coupons will be open for applications from May 16 – September 30, 2023, and February 16 – September 30, 2023, respectively.
To empower the Big Data initiative, depa recently visited the Big Data Center project with the platform promotion and digital service team and GBDi. Led by Deputy Director General Central Investigation Bureau, Dr Passakorn Prathombutr, depa discussed the possibility of linking digital data and exchanging knowledge on technology, including big data, data analytics, smart office, face detection systems, vehicle registration, and various security systems.
Dr Passakorn mentioned Depa’s mission of establishing a cooperation network with public and private agencies in urban areas to utilise Big Data for security systems in smart cities and for technology-ready entrepreneurs. He also mentioned Depa’s plan to pilot and link data in the City Data Platform (CDP).
Depa and GBDi are ready to cooperate in promoting data linking and advising on preparing Big Data. They have already begun piloting and testing the API to search for suspicious vehicles through license plates to verify information more efficiently and predict crime risk. This technology can be applied to cities in the future.
Before that, DGA Director Dr Suphot Thienwut presented the project’s results and master plan for the next three years on facilitating the business systems project through Doing Business Portal Roadmap. The Master Plan will lay out a strategy and tools to help companies easily navigate the approval, permit and government service processes. Both the Ease of Doing Business Index and The Competitiveness of Thailand rating were targeted for improvement under the strategy.
