In recent years, the topic of "artificial intelligence" or AI has been talked about a lot, especially after many companies around the world began to adopt the technology in their organizations, creating a conversation in society that employees who do not have such skills may ultimately be affected.
For Thai companies, many agencies, both public and private, are trying to build AI knowledge for their personnel. One of them is to create a workforce that is proficient in such matters through training from the Super AI Engineer camp. today Insiderly.ai Talk to Dr. Thepchai Sapnithi Vice President of the Artificial Intelligence Association of Thailand and Founder
จุดเริ่มต้นของ ‘Super AI Engineer’
Dr. Thepchai began to tell me that the Super AI Engineer camp started about 10 years ago when AI won the chess tournament for the first time. Recognizing the importance of AI, it provided a budget to set up such a camp. In the early days, it was only a camp for scholars and researchers. Before in recent years, it was open to all people who were interested in participating.
The purpose of this camp is to create AI "engineers" who are interested in pursuing a career in a total of 5 fields: engineers who want to work in engineering; Engineers who want to be researchers An engineer who wants to be an innovator. Engineers who want to be entrepreneurs and engineers who want to be teachers.
From the first day there was an idea to organize a camp. now Dr. Thepchai shared that this camp has been held for a total of 4 years and the number of people interested in participating has increased significantly. "In the first year, we had 2,000 applicants, in the second year 5,000, in the third year 6,000 people, and in the fourth year there were almost 8,000 people," he said.
"In Season 2, the youngest applicant is 9 years old, while the oldest is 80 years old, and after being selected, the youngest is 16-17 years old, while the highest is 55 years old.
Dr. Thepchai continued to explain that participants must spend about 1 year in the camp and divide the participation process into 3 levels. Everyone enters Level 1 to lay the foundation of logic and programming.
After that, it will move to the second level, which is the nature of the hackathon competition, where participants will be divided into groups to receive questions from various business sectors or agencies. The process will be like this for about 2 months before all participants enter Level 3, which is to go to work in the actual establishment for 2 months.
Super AI Engineer Camp Academic Olympiad in AI (?)
When asked if this camp is like an academic olympiad for people interested in AI, he said: Dr. Thepchai explained that many people say that the difficulty of entering the Academic Olympiad is similar to that of the Academic Olympiad, but the difference is that this camp does not focus much on theory but focuses on practical situations, whether it is receiving problems from various agencies or going to work in an establishment for two months before the end of the camp.
However, Dr. Thepchai continued, "This camp has been trusted to the extent that if any high school student can enter the camp, he will be able to enter the camp. Many leading universities are ready to accept students to continue their studies in the portfolio round without exams, or students in some universities can also use the camp certificate to bypass some subjects at the university, such as Introduction to AI, etc.
Examples of camp alumni who went out in the tech industry.
After holding the camp for a total of 4 seasons. Over the past 10 years, Dr. Thepchai gave an example of an important alumnus who said that many graduates from the camp have the opportunity to change majors and receive a better salary and experience.
"The first is that he is a doctor who has tried to apply for a doctoral degree abroad many times but no university has accepted him. Now I have joined hands with friends I met in the camp who are from Chula Engineering to build a startup together."
"The other is an early year student from Chula Engineering University, he has had a dream of wanting to start a startup for a long time. Now he has his own company since he was in his second year of school."
"The third person was a professor at a university and came to the camp with us when we finished. The situation at the university has changed, and he has become an assistant to the president in E-learning and education, and he brought his friends in the camp to help create an AI curriculum for the university."
"The fourth person was a ground stewardess with an airline. He was so diligent that he was selected for the camp. Finally, there is a tech company. Pull yourself to work because you have both communication skills. Able to write basic programming. Therefore, it can be an intermediary of communication between customers and tech workers. Yes."
From all the examples. Dr. Thepchai explained that anyone who is committed and interested in AI can join the Super AI Engineer camp, just have the intention: "Most of the science and mathematics knowledge used is at the high school level, but what is really important is the use of logic and programming.
The whole world has a shortage of AI workers.
When asked about the demand for AI workers, Dr. Thepchai shared that there is a severe shortage of people with AI knowledge in the world right now, and most importantly, there are only two such camps in Southeast Asia, namely Singapore and Thailand.
"Many countries have a shortage of AI personnel, such as Japan, Korea, and China, but they don't have a camp like this, only in Singapore they do AI Apprentice camps, but the difference is that in Singapore, they recruit people who are good in each field to train and enter the labor market. As long as you are interested in AI, we are ready to provide knowledge, and over the past 10 years, we have seen a trend of people who are interested in it continue to increase."
Calling on the government to support the creation of AI personnel
in addition Dr. Thepchai continued that there is still a debate about the camp's fundraising model. In the first year of the camp. The organizers made the scholarship available to all those who were selected, but as time passed when the budget from the government was less in the fourth year, the funding was not enough to fund any applicants.
"The government said that the camp has been held for 4 years, but why can't we find a sustainable income model without relying on the government, such as the support from the private sector, but when I talk to the private sector, they often say that the responsibility of building people should be the responsibility of the government.
Dr. Thepchai added, "This camp is like a jigsaw puzzle that should not be thrown away, so there will be many ways that the government wants to see and they need to see the image of an ecosystem in terms of creating more AI personnel.
"If the government intends to create a skilled workforce in line with the global trend that has begun to establish more production bases in our region, we will have to create a skilled workforce. I think that investing in real labor skills building may also build confidence in the Thai economy as a whole."
อนาคตค่าย ‘Super AI Engineer’
When asked about the future of the camp that he has created with his hands. Dr. Thepchai said that he wants to create AI personnel to respond to the needs of the whole world. In the last year's camp. There is a mission for all camp participants that after the camp ends, If possible, I would like everyone to come back to share and teach the children in the coming years, all of which is to change everyone from Learner to Coacher.
"Many people often ask if there is such a shortage of AI personnel, and those who graduate from the camp will not all work for Google, Nvidia or famous tech companies, or if they do not think we have any boundaries now, and I believe that if our project is well intentioned like this, there will be many children who graduated from our camp and worked abroad to cooperate or help."
"Don't think that they should be tied up here, but it is better for them to go to different places and come back to help us, it is better for them to be free and willing. This is a form of contribution to the country."
"Another thing I think is that if there is a shortage of AI workers, it is not strange that we will create talented people and send them to work abroad, just like India sends CEOs all over the world.
"And I dreamed that if we had a very talented person at a certain level, we would have to be very talented. I want the big companies that they invest in not only to invest as distributors or to sell things to us, but they must invest as research centers and transfer knowledge to us, so that Thailand will also benefit."
AI knowledge that the general public should know
at last The conversation discussed today seems to be about AI issues for those who want to dive deeper into the field of artificial intelligence. However, when asked what knowledge the general public should have about AI, the Vice President of the AI Association of Thailand. In conclusion, we need AI to be and have decision-making skills.
"The first is that we must not close our ears and eyes. Everyone must understand that AI is the base. We need AI all the time. Once we have an awareness of AI, in what direction will we use it? Nowadays, the easiest way is to use generative AI to help you do the work. It is to step into the world of artificial intelligence. Or some professors may even say to look at it as a partner, but I think just a tool is enough."
"The most important thing is that everyone should use it to their advantage. We have to decide whether the information it collects is right or wrong, because in the end, all the results are generated by data, so once we get the answer, we will check later whether it is correct or not."
"If you use AI as a co-pilot, use him, and we have to be pilots too, because otherwise it will be very dangerous."
