Abstract

Key issues to make Thailand more dynamic, competitive and prepared for ASEAN economic integration are the implementation of Internal Smart with eGovernment, International Smart with intergovernmental processes and overcoming language barriers. As a first step towards internal smart or being a smart society, eGovernment has been implementing since 2000 in order to improve government services, transactions and interactions with citizens and business. Since 2007, the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology has been developing the Thailand eGovernment Interoperability Framework (TH e‑GIF) as guidelines for transformation to connected government. However, the transformation has been slow for six main reasons: lack of national data standards and standard governance body, lack of clear understanding about common processes across all involved stakeholders, lack of best practices and knowledge sharing in implementation, lack of data quality and data collection resources, lack of laws and regulations in data sharing and absence of a proactive mindset. The challenges are how to accelerate connected government and push forward to the connected ASEAN. This work focuses on three main activities: analyzing the gaps and prioritizing the need of information exchange, providing systematic approach for data standardization as well as developing a roadmap for moving towards a smart government with smart health, smart education, smart agriculture, smart tourism, smart trade and smart energy by 2015. Using best practices and the road map, the creation of connected government and connection to ASEAN can be pursued in a strategic and rapid manner. Moreover, secure e‑transactions with supportive laws, science, technologies and innovation are also key factors for ec onomic growth sustainability and community well‑being enhancement.