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Thai Gov’t to release PC caravan to raise rural ICT skills

By Thanya Kunakornpaiboonsiri | 9 April 2012 | Views: 1573

PC caravan under the ‘Amazing PC’ campaign will leave Bangkok next week and travel to over 400 destinations countrywide delivering IT knowledge and increasing computer literacy in rural communities.

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From April 19 to December, a caravan of seven trucks, each equipped with about twenty desktop and notebook computers, will make 400 stops at 1,200 sub-districts in 67 provinces to demonstrate how to use PCs, and to help adults make the best use of computers. Thailand has 76 provinces in total.

“The campaign will provide opportunity for rural people to become IT-literate and also leverage the knowledge of people in remote communities to use IT to support their business and lifestyles in the era of a knowledge-based economy,” said Gp Capt Anudith Nakornthap, Minister of Information and Communication Technology (MICT).

The MICT also provides IT knowledge and skills to people upcountry via 1,200 ICT community centres nationwide, he added.

The Amazing PC programme is a partnership among the MICT, the National Broadcasting and Telecommunication Commission (NBCT), and eight partners from global chip and computer makers— Intel, Lenovo, Acer, Samsung, Toshiba, Asus, HP and Dell.

The trucks will provide IT fluency to people and students in remote areas. By reaching at least 400,000 households, the programme is expected to spur demand for the personal-computer market to grow by about 20 per cent over the next three to six months this year as families buy a PC for one of their members.

A National Statistical Office survey in 2010 showed that 15 million of a total of 19.65 million households, or 77% did not have computers at home.

The NBCT’s Vice Chairman, Settapong Malisuwan said that this campaign would help narrow the gap in IT literacy between metropolitan and upcountry residents.

To reduce the need for digital devices and to ensure universal access, the NBTC planned to invest about THB 20 billion (US$ 645.3 million) to set up network infrastructure to increase broadband use to 80% of the population by 2016, from 32% in 2011, he added.

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