Technology Entrepreneurship In Thailand

[canadiangirl]

Hey guys,

I was just curious to find out: is there any kind of technology entrepreneurship happening in Thailand, any interesting home-grown startup companies? Is there access to venture capital for young companies?

I know that there are branches of the big multinationals like IBM, but what about small tech companies? I was reading that India, which started out mostly doing outsourcing, has now spawned its own companies, aiming to compete with the multinationals.

As far as I know, there is not a big software industry in Thailand. Am I wrong?

I'm mostly just curious. Thanks for any info!

[Prakanong]

They are trying to encourage this and at one point even Phuket was being talked about as a sort of IT village to try and take advantage of the cables that go from India, down to Singapore and onwards.

I once spoke to the Department of Trade and Industry (UK) gut for Thailand, Laos and Cambodia about this and he mentioned one of the top CP guys wanting to start something up - this was back in 2000.

Yes India started as outsourcing / offshoring and is building up its own industry now - lots of returners from USA etc.

Recently I was reading articles though that mentioned China as overtaking India - dunno about that as the only outsourcing and offshoring i am involved with is in India except some small private work from the Philippines for charity.

The Philippines is another country and they have the English skills but I beleive the industry is caught in a bit of a catch 22 there with the workers going oversea's which restricts the growth of local firms.

Thailand has the disadvantag of language unfortunately.

[canadiangirl]

They are trying to encourage this and at one point even Phuket was being talked about as a sort of IT village to try and take advantage of the cables that go from India, down to Singapore and onwards.

I once spoke to the Department of Trade and Industry (UK) gut for Thailand, Laos and Cambodia about this and he mentioned one of the top CP guys wanting to start something up - this was back in 2000.

Yes India started as outsourcing / offshoring and is building up its own industry now - lots of returners from USA etc.

Recently I was reading articles though that mentioned China as overtaking India - dunno about that as the only outsourcing and offshoring i am involved with is in India except some small private work from the Philippines for charity.

The Philippines is another country and they have the English skills but I beleive the industry is caught in a bit of a catch 22 there with the workers going oversea's which restricts the growth of local firms.

Thailand has the disadvantag of language unfortunately.

Phuket? Man, with those beautiful beaches, how would you ever get any work done? Oh, I guess if Californians can do it. :-P

I don't know too much about China high tech. Lots of Chinese foreign students in grad school in North America, in CS, math, engineering, etc -- I don't know how many return to China vs. try to stay here. For outsourcing, my friend's company has some programmers in China, and they are CHEAP. Not very good, apparently, but cheap. A fairly specialized programmer there happily makes 10K.

My guess is that the education system is better in China/India vs. Thailand -- and it's hard to create knowledge industries without educated people. I might be wrong about this, though. Does anyone know?

[chinthee]

They are trying to encourage this and at one point even Phuket was being talked about as a sort of IT village to try and take advantage of the cables that go from India, down to Singapore and onwards.

I once spoke to the Department of Trade and Industry (UK) gut for Thailand, Laos and Cambodia about this and he mentioned one of the top CP guys wanting to start something up - this was back in 2000.

Yes India started as outsourcing / offshoring and is building up its own industry now - lots of returners from USA etc.

Recently I was reading articles though that mentioned China as overtaking India - dunno about that as the only outsourcing and offshoring i am involved with is in India except some small private work from the Philippines for charity.

The Philippines is another country and they have the English skills but I beleive the industry is caught in a bit of a catch 22 there with the workers going oversea's which restricts the growth of local firms.

Thailand has the disadvantag of language unfortunately.

Phuket? Man, with those beautiful beaches, how would you ever get any work done? Oh, I guess if Californians can do it. :-P

I don't know too much about China high tech. Lots of Chinese foreign students in grad school in North America, in CS, math, engineering, etc -- I don't know how many return to China vs. try to stay here. For outsourcing, my friend's company has some programmers in China, and they are CHEAP. Not very good, apparently, but cheap. A fairly specialized programmer there happily makes 10K.

My guess is that the education system is better in China/India vs. Thailand -- and it's hard to create knowledge industries without educated people. I might be wrong about this, though. Does anyone know?

Yes, you're right. The 3 countries mentioned are leading this area. India has the advantage of language, and many US/UK and other grads returning. Explosive growth in this area. China also, though obviously not for English. Philippines has always been the default for English, though getting its butt kicked by India now.

Thailand? Phuket IT centre? I'll let others comment on that.

[nemo38]

Technology entrepreneurship in Thailand would most likely come from Foreigners. Many foreigners have gone to Thailand and started all kinds of imaginative businesses which has bee a huge benefit to the country.

As someone in the thread pointed out, International Universities are full of Chinese and Indian graduate students working in IT. But not Thai.

[Wekhin]

Software industry in Thailand is a lame duck due to Thaksin regime. He did not support the industry. He did not support open-source technology. Instead, he invited Bill Gates to his office and bought a whole chuck of MS products for government agencies. Almost all of government websites are developed with MS technology. If you access their websites with browsers other than IE or using other OS, you will not get standard functionalities as it should have been.

There are some capable entrepreneurs. They have a software association trying to spearhead but not as big as those in India or China.

[steveromagnino]

Technology entrepreneurship in Thailand would most likely come from Foreigners. Many foreigners have gone to Thailand and started all kinds of imaginative businesses which has bee a huge benefit to the country.

As someone in the thread pointed out, International Universities are full of Chinese and Indian graduate students working in IT. But not Thai.

Applied technology a bit going on, but India and China seems to produce far more IT literate people - even my Thai Indian friends admit that when they go study in USA they will be novel, as they will be Thai Indian.....studying IT (rather than Indian studying IT, when they said it seemed kinda funny).

I can think of one guy who has invented a new process for shirt printing. Some nice innovations in POS software. But mostly.. to be an IT entrepreneur here means scouring the world for cool IT stuff for mobile/database/home/office apps, and then modifying it and selling it to the local market. Certainly a few foreigners have come in with great ideas leveraging off Thai skill and cost structures; in fact just met with one like this a couple of hours back. but few are pure IT plays, mostly using IT as a means to do something else.

Compared to say animation, graphic design and other jobs using IT as a means to an end but instead focusing on creativity, Thailand isn't doing so much in the pure IT side of things; at least not that i have seen. Instead there is a hord of talented graphic artists, designers, animators, etc and relatively few that want to be computer nerds. Not sure why. My new client, an IT company of sorts, has one IT expert who would be considered relatively expert in her programming field (mobile technology) yet has never received formal training. Weird huh>?

But I ain't seen too much ;-) not my area of knowledge. Now....beer, single malts and boats. I can tell you about that ;-)

I understand the concept of Phuket as an IT village was fairly ill conceived, but centered around the idea of foreigners bieng able to locate businesses there; work and play in the sun and so forth.

[chinthee]

The Phuket IT Village dream was the most ill-conceived, badly-executed government sponsored project I've ever seen. Yes, I know some good tech guys in Thailand too, particularly in telecoms. Unfortunately, many of them will never get the chance to showcase their talents I believe.

[Prakanong]

As I said the Phuket IT idea was 7 years ago when I heard about it - they never got the link to the big cable in the end though either.

I am meeting a guy from the British High Commission for drinks tomorrow who knew my pal well and my pal was the guy who put me into the DTI guy as he was seconded to the DTI to cover Japan from the FCO - maybe the guy tomorrow will know more about it.

I agree with Steveromagnino about the Graphic Artists type IT guys - they were the ones I came across most rather than nerdy geeks when I worked in IT in Thailand.

[canadiangirl]

Software industry in Thailand is a lame duck due to Thaksin regime. He did not support the industry. He did not support open-source technology. Instead, he invited Bill Gates to his office and bought a whole chuck of MS products for government agencies. Almost all of government websites are developed with MS technology. If you access their websites with browsers other than IE or using other OS, you will not get standard functionalities as it should have been.

There are some capable entrepreneurs. They have a software association trying to spearhead but not as big as those in India or China.

Interesting, Wekhin. Do you have any more information on this software association? I tried googling for tech enterpreneurship in BKK, but I mostly found stuff about Singapore. I guess it might all be in Thai, but I would have thought the language of high-tech was English. Maybe I'm wrong?

I tried to look up some grassroots enterpreneurship things like Barcamp and Democamp in BKK, but there wasn't anything really there.

[singa-traz]

There are existing and new IT associations in Thailand, for IT Professionals:

ATCI: www.atci.or.th

PMI: www.pmithai.org

ISACA: www.isaca-bangkok.org/

Two new associations ready to start:

ITSMF Thailand: www.itsmf.com

IASA Thailand: www.iasahome.org

There are certainly more than that, but that's a good start.

[Prakanong]

I found this in Wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Park_Thailand

Here is a presentation about the Software Park and its activities

http://www.business-in-asia.com/slide_soft...esentation.html

And their own website in English - you have to go through the Thai first page and change the language option

http://www.swpark.or.th/index.php?module=f...amp;language=en

[canadiangirl]

Compared to say animation, graphic design and other jobs using IT as a means to an end but instead focusing on creativity, Thailand isn't doing so much in the pure IT side of things; at least not that i have seen. Instead there is a hord of talented graphic artists, designers, animators, etc and relatively few that want to be computer nerds. Not sure why. My new client, an IT company of sorts, has one IT expert who would be considered relatively expert in her programming field (mobile technology) yet has never received formal training. Weird huh>?

It's interesting that you mention that. I'm making a broad and vague generalization here, but Thailand strikes me as one of those cultures that just "gets" aesthetics more than other cultures. Japan would be another example of this, if not in exactly the same way. The sense of beauty of the average person seems to be very developed. I'm somehow not surprised that they would be good on the creative, artistic side of things. I am surprised that Thailand wouldn't push to become more a global leader in those areas actually -- sort of like France with cultural industries, or Japan with design.

Your posts are always informative steveromagnimo!

[Wekhin]

Software industry in Thailand is a lame duck due to Thaksin regime. He did not support the industry. He did not support open-source technology. Instead, he invited Bill Gates to his office and bought a whole chuck of MS products for government agencies. Almost all of government websites are developed with MS technology. If you access their websites with browsers other than IE or using other OS, you will not get standard functionalities as it should have been.

There are some capable entrepreneurs. They have a software association trying to spearhead but not as big as those in India or China.

Interesting, Wekhin. Do you have any more information on this software association? I tried googling for tech enterpreneurship in BKK, but I mostly found stuff about Singapore. I guess it might all be in Thai, but I would have thought the language of high-tech was English. Maybe I'm wrong?

I tried to look up some grassroots enterpreneurship things like Barcamp and Democamp in BKK, but there wasn't anything really there.

I found these two sites that you can try:

http://www.atsi.or.th/front/index.cfm

http://www.swpark.or.th/index.php?module=f...&page=index

[steveromagnino]

It's interesting that you mention that. I'm making a broad and vague generalization here, but Thailand strikes me as one of those cultures that just "gets" aesthetics more than other cultures. Japan would be another example of this, if not in exactly the same way. The sense of beauty of the average person seems to be very developed. I'm somehow not surprised that they would be good on the creative, artistic side of things. I am surprised that Thailand wouldn't push to become more a global leader in those areas actually -- sort of like France with cultural industries, or Japan with design.

Your posts are always informative steveromagnimo!

I agree. In animation, advertising production, advertising creative, fashion industry, graphic design, architecture, art - Thais can be second to none.

The key thing is harnessing the talent to go in the right direction and being able to manage the client. In the case of world design, there are companies like DWP Citispace that have Thai staff doing design for some of the biggest and best brands in the world e.g. Calvin Klein, Billabong, Louis Vuitton, etc. Advertising awards have recognised some of the great ideas via the big ad agencies like BBDO. Animators are producing series for Korea, Japan, etc.

For fashion, however, the great ideas have not yet translated into a world wide brand; perhaps Sretsis and Naraya (two opposite ends of the price spectrum) are the closest to acheiving this as both are growing rapidly abroad. My own guess is the lack of organisation and planning, and lack of knowledge of what the other person at the other end (e.g. a customer in the UK) wants is the problem; for the agencies they have an infrastructure to filter and refine ideas into something that a western customer, for instance, would like; yet no similar filter exists for fashion - and the failure that was Bangkok Fashion City merely emphasized the gap rather than fixing it.

One of my friends used to complain at the lack of original art. Until he organised some puppet and street performance shows, where he was inundated with performers, just out there doing things they loved, and few people knowing them. It was a huge eye opener for him as a non Thai, and he has since used the artists for various things and even a few of them have ended up performing abroad in street theatre stuff. Again, the bridge to get them out and performing just seems to be a bit broken, and instead we have Joe Louis, Patravadi and so on - just a few artists who know how to market themselves to be the darlings of the expat community, while the rest go unnoticed.

Virtually every Thai person I know can draw a fairly passable series of cartoon dogs, cats, people and so on. My own dad was an artist and architect and sculpture, yet I am totally inept at doing those same things - and i would be normal in the country I grew up in.

Same for rote learning; most Thai people I know, particularly ones from upcountry have an almost photographic memory for detail such as names places we went etc etc. Yet reasoning skills can sometimes be seriously odd, spacial sense is poor (e.g. inability to read a map).

Strengths and weaknesses - I'd say your generalisation is not too far from the truth :-) Mind you some people I know are as inept as i am at art - that makes me feel somewhat better ;-)

Phuket IT city though.... so far from realistic as to be laughable. Some might say it was a govt promotion to drive up the property prices for the large land owners down there, so many of whom were TRT MPs, but saying that would seem a bit 'Taksin' :-)

Edited August 30, 2007 by steveromagnino