The National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre is pursuing three flagship initiatives for the co-creation of excellence with partners, the ultimate goal being to leverage the competitiveness of the country as a whole.
Nectec executive director Pansak Siriruchatapong said the agency’s direction and strategy this year was concentrated on three initiatives – Smart Farm, Smart Healthcare and Digitised Thailand – which focus on utilising technology to support the agriculture, healthcare and tourism sectors.
With Smart Farm, the agency has cooperated with government agencies under the Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry to provide information services for the sector, and has developed easy-to-use kits to support farmers.
The Fast Fluidic Fix Focus KIT, or F4-KIT, aids the detection of macroscopic fungi, or parasites such as quarantine pests in aquatic plants for export.
Nectec’s Smart Farm initiative has also developed fertiliser services, which provide a kit that allows farmers to access information on their crops and soil areas, and to decide how much fertiliser they need to use.
This is dependent on demand in an area and, also entailing the use of a weather-station project, means the use of new technology to support precision farming and precision agriculture, thus creating benefits for farmers nationwide.
“We will provide new technology and services to support agriculture and farmers, so that they can easily access information and knowledge to develop their farming at a reduced cost, and improve their productivity,” said Pansak.
The agency has also developed a mobile application based on the Android operating system, which will allow farmers to access information via tablets and other mobile devices.
For example, the BaiKhaoNK app allows farmers to monitor the nitrogen-potassium level in rice, which will enable them to reduce costs.
For Smart Healthcare, the agency has developed the prototype of a National Health Information System (NHIS), which is a patient-information project.
The five hospitals participating in the project are able to exchange information and each other’s access patients, which reduces the complexity of information.
Nectec is also developing tools for converting huge data loads and analysis information on patients, so that the information is securely protected and correct treatment is administered.
In addition, the agency has developed a Referral Health Information Exchange (RHIE) under the NHIS.
With the RHIE, it will send a patient’s health information to the destination hospital prior to the person’s arrival, enabling the hospital to prepare the appropriate medicine without the individual having to wait a long time from treatment.
The system utilises technology and an integrated system in order to hasten treatment and increase the quality of healthcare service across the country, Pansak said.
Lastly, under the Digitised Thailand initiative, Nectec will develop a tourism-related portal, using integrated technology in terms of a platform enabling tourists to easily access information and plan their travel online.
The agency intends the portal service to provide information from local communities in order to support and promote the tourism industry and Otop (One Tambon One Product) operators.
Pansak added that for the harddisk industry, the agency is applying technology to product development in support of new gadgets and for market segments such as hard disks for home servers.