For Suwipa Wanasathop, the director of Software Park Thailand, there's no difference between nurturing her children and incubating young and start-up software companies. The 45-year-old mother believes that all her attempts to take care of them will push them to grow perfectly in the future.

Suwipa always thinks in advance to provide her three daughters and son with "life luggage" so that once they grow up, they will have everything ready to take on their own journey of life.

"I always think about what is needed for my children's lives and then I prepare for them, let them learn and discover many things that will be beneficial for their future so that one day they can stay by themselves," she said.

Apart from studying in school, Suwipa offers her children a chance to learn about art and culture. She never rushed her kids to take extra tutoring, but instead often takes them to museums, teaches them Thai culture and morals, and allows them to learn music, dance and the Korean martial art of Taekwando.

As part of being Software Park's director, Suwipa still uses her maternity to help nurture young software companies in the hope of building them to grow and be stronger in business.

Like the way she brings up her children, she makes an effort to lay down the infrastructure necessary to incubate young companies. She hopes that with facilities and consultancy services provided by Software Park, she could help any individuals who have an interest in software development to start their business.

"We can help them grow from the starting point, incubate them and bring them to a success," she said.

Even though incubation could not guarantee success for every young company and the job is not that easy, Suwipa is never tired of spending time with new start-ups to talk and listen to them about their products and business development.

Many times, like a mother, she gives them advice on market opportunities, helps them to find markets for their products and eventually nurtures them to grow in real business.

During the four years of the incubation project, the park has helped more than 100 software companies, of which 98 have proved a success and have already gone out to do business on their own.

"This is our pride," she said with a smile. "Every time I see them grow, leave from our chest and stand by themselves as they go on their way, it makes me really happy."

Today, business incubation is still a major job at Software Park. Suwipa believes this job was a key step to help build up the entrepreneurial generation in the country.

In addition, she also realised that the development of innovation was essential.

Apart from paying attention to business incubation, she also encourages young companies, as well as software companies as a whole, to develop their own innovation. She said that if the country wanted to be self-reliant, having its own innovation was a must.

Both incubation and innovation development are two key challenges that Suwipa wants to push in the software industry - and they are also her key agenda to run Software Park.

Suwipa came to take the highest position as the park's director one and a half years ago.

The Bachelor of Arts from Thammasat University and Fulbright scholar (Masters of Business Administration and Marketing) admitted that she had to adjust a lot to learn and understand more about software technology. But it was not too hard for her to do. Blended with her marketing knowledge, she was able to help the park to develop the local software industry.

In the second era of Software Park under Suwipa's hands, she plans to make more efforts in marketing to promote local software products for export.

"In my first spell, we started from laying down infrastructure to strengthen the software industry and I would say that we achieved the goal. Now we have strong supply software development. Next, we hope to push our products and services to be sold not only in the country but also abroad," she said.

Last year, Suwipa initiated a project called Go to US Market by helping to identify eight local software companies who have potential products for export to penetrate the US market.

The park has allocated its budget to hire a consultant company to train local software companies, conduct a workshop, give them suggestions on marketing strategy when they tackle the foreign market and, importantly, to find potential customers in the US market for them.

"This is a pilot project and it's a starting point for our market expansion. We hope that this will be the first step to help explode Thai software products and services to the target market while making them be recognised on the global stage," she said.

Even though it's been hard work for almost a decade at Software Park, Suwipa realises there are other important things in her life.

"I never thought that I could do many things for the country like this until I realised that what I was doing was helping to build a foundation for Thailand's development, and this makes me proud of myself," she said.

During her working life, Suwipa kept one thing in mind - the philosophy of "nation first". So every step of work she has ever done - and will be doing - has been to support that mission.

"I want to do things that really give benefit to the country and I believe that what I'm doing to help strengthen the local software industry is a way to help the country's development," she said.

Making a contribution to the country actually is always in Suwipa's mind and this was also one reason that she returned to Thailand 10 years ago after following her husband around Europe for nine years.

Some say it may be destiny for a housewife who knew nothing about software to take a key part in the industry's development. But for Suwipa, it's really her intention to use her capabilities to help the country's development in this area.

Pongpen Sutharoj

The Nation