Thailand becomes one of five countries in Asia Pacific chosen by Microsoft for empowering people with disabilities (PwDs) with a cloud and AI training, Google also introduces “Saphan Digital” to supply new skilled workforce for the growing market demand.
Vivek Puthucode, Chief Partner Officer at Microsoft in Asia Pacific said Microsoft Enable Program will provide online training in data engineering and programming, cloud computing and AI to the PwDs. These modules will provide crucial technology skills that are globally recognized, and highly sought after in our digital first and remote everything world, therefore providing them with a learning path for industry leading skillsets that improves their employability.
Microsoft selects Thailand as one of the five pilot countries including South Korea, New Zealand, Philippines, and Singapore due to their readiness, before expand the program to other countries by 2020.
With more than 1 billion people with disabilities (PwDs) in the world and 650 million in Asia Pacific, disability-inclusive employment can lead to 1-7% rise in GDP in Asia Pacific through increased economic productivity.
Microsoft will provide online training in data engineering and programming, cloud computing on Microsoft Azure and application development in GitHub to the PwDs. These modules will provide crucial technology skills that are globally recognized, and highly sought after in our digital first and remote everything world, therefore providing them with a learning path for industry leading skillsets that improves their employability. For the employer partners, Microsoft will conduct workshops on inclusive design and assistive technologies enabled through artificial intelligence on Microsoft Azure.
Organizations committed to the program will receive training from the Non-Profit organizations (NPOs) to become inclusive employers, and these businesses will in turn provide job shadowing, internships, mentoring and opportunities in tech jobs for PwDs identified by the NPO’s. Microsoft will provide industry required training in cloud & artificial intelligence, as well as a platform for all three to collaborate towards an inclusive future for every person.
The Non-Profit Organizations are: Be. Lab (New Zealand), JA Korea, KODAF (Korea Differently Abled Federation), SG Enable (Singapore), The Redemptorist Foundation for People with Disabilities (Thailand), Virtualahan (Philippines).
The employer partners are 1. Cloocus (Korea) 2. Cognizant Technology Solutions (Singapore, Philippines) 3. Crayon (Singapore, Philippines) 4. Datacom (New Zealand) 5. DXC Technology (New Zealand) 6. ePLDT (Philippines) 7. HCL Technologies (Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, New Zealand) 8. Ingram Micro Asia (Singapore) 9. Metanet Platform (Korea) 10. Nexus Tech (Philippines) 11. NTT Asia Pacific 12. NTT Data (Singapore, Philippines) 13. Tech Data (Singapore)14. Wipro (Singapore, Philippines, Thailand)
Google Thailand, in collaboration with the Commerce Ministry and business partners, take off Saphan Digital https://saphandigital.moc.go.th/ the free online learning for SMEs, NGOs and general public.
Google Thailand Country Manager Jackie Wang said the program is one of Google’s efforts to help more than 1.3 million small and medium enterprises (SMEs) impacted by Covid-19.This “new normal” has encouraged entrepreneurs to do online business to serve their customers and open opportunities for the right people to match with entrepreneurs and NGOs.
