Cybersecurity and ethical "white hat" hacking are among the digital skill sets targeted by the Digital Economy Promotion Agency (Depa) to support eight projects aimed at upskilling tech workers and moving the country towards a digital society.
Depa president and chief executive Nuttapon Nimmanphatcharin said his agency was instructed by Digital Economy and Society (DES) Minister Buddhipongse Punnakanta to enhance the potential and capability of digital workers to drive growth and development in Thailand.
Depa is responsible for supporting digital literacy and digital knowledge among civil servants and workers in the private sector, as well as next-generation students and graduates.
According to Mr Nuttapon, Depa has been working with educational institutes and the private sector to develop digital skills for those in the ICT sector, such as enhancing their capabilities in the cybersecurity, data science and data engineering fields.
He said a Depa subcommittee on June 26 approved support for eight projects aimed at developing personnel in digital technology and innovation under the Depa Digital Manpower Fund.
Two of the projects involve the development of white-hat hackers, defined as those who perform penetration testing, test in-place security systems and make vulnerability assessments.
Of these two, one concerns the training of white-hat hackers under collaboration with Kasetsart University's Extension and Training Office. The other involves a project to transform gamers into white-hat hackers under collaboration with the Sripatum University Business Incubator.
Two other projects concern cyber- security skill enhancement in cooperation with Mahidol University's Faculty of Information and Communication Technology and the Sripatum University Business Incubator, the latter of which focuses on providing basic cybersecurity knowledge for gamers.
The fifth and sixth projects entail the upskilling of workers in the data science fields. One is supported by Kasetsart University's Faculty of Science and the other by the Faculty of Engineering at the same university.
The seventh involves the support of worker capability in the data engineering field, and the eighth concerns reskilling and upskilling digital personnel under the Angle Investor Readiness Training Programme. This final project is initiated by the Thailand Management Association (TMA).
According to Mr Nuttapon, these projects are meant to drive the development of digital manpower, "particularly digital personnel that have to deal with cybersecurity".
"They will learn about how to prevent and tackle various forms of cyberthreats and cybersecurity, as gamers will be more aware of cybersecurity and will become good gamers," he said. "Meanwhile, programmers will be incubated to become white-hat hackers as SME operators are upskilled to enhance their business performances."