taabarang wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2019 11:45 am It seems to me that you are looking for both ideas and inspiration. Google a similar program in the German educational system called "Practicum." They don't have the struggle of academic excellence that you will face. I can't help but feeling that you will have more success if you can find an educational institution willing to better prepare some students for your needs

I'll try the PNC people and see where that goes, they look interesting. They have local tech colleges in Thailand, but the students seem compelled to turn up to useless classes all the time; and you have to undo a lot of the dross they get "taught". Rescuing my neice from the Thai education system in her teens has been a priority, she's proven perfectly capable of learning the maths and CS theory and practical, even whilst being immersively trained in English, but then she has monoglot cousins her age.

I thought this was worthy of a mention:

https://www.dw.com/en/cambodian-girls-d ... a-44724399
https://www.development-innovations.org/technovation/

Speaking from experience... IT professionals in Cambodia (especially new graduates) have the knowledge of high school seniors in the US (the ones that took AP classes in CS). They are not very good and do not pay attention to details (which sucks when you have lines and lines of code). Keep in mind that I'm just making blanket statements. I've met one or two that had the skills of a US community college graduate.

The real problem isn't their skill set. The real problem is their behavior at work. Never have I ever met such unprofessional people. Some don't show up to work. Some always have a sick baby on either Fridays or Mondays. You can't tell them anything since they think they're the king of the castle. I had to ask a friend from the US to remotely point out all the flaws in the code. Major loss of face for the wannabe Bill Gates. Oh and they take naps. Even if they show up at 9am, they will still take a damn nap after lunch. They will then try to get off work at 5pm on the dot. Productivity is minimal. I understand why the French imported Vietnamese people to get shit done in Cambodia.
DO NOT expect the kind of productivity you've witnessed in the west. It simply doesn't exist here.

You will find a gem here and there, but it will take you years. The best programmer I've ever had in Cambodia was a Cambodian kid that got both his BS and MS in Thailand. The kid can code, and speak, read and write 5 languages. Fluently. He didn't last long in Cambodia. He went back to Thailand after his probation period. That's saying something.

If you have the funds, try to source your workers from India or Thailand. If you have even more funds, just hire from Europe or North America. It will save you a great deal of hassle. Why pay $800 for a lousy local programmer when you can pay $1200 and get someone that will do the same job more accurately and faster?

Thanks for that. Why pay? Well because I want the benefits of having a company based in more than one developing country, some of which aren't to do with the business.

I think I've already reached the point where I won't be bothering unversity graduates in Cambodia. The teenage apprentice seems like a better bet.
The lower level PNC kids look more interesting, and sound like they may be more responsive. I think it's possible to get young ones inculcated with western behaviours.

The issues you describe in Cambodia sound similar to Thailand. Alas the laws require you to maintain a ratio of Thais to foreigners, so the real cost of you farang coder is farang salary + 4 x 20,000 THB + 1,500 SS of local turkeys. Could just have "coding cheerleaders" for staff and bring that overhead down, but don't want coders distracted!

My preference is to find half-Thai or half-Khmers who don't have the visa/wp issues and perhaps not the cultural issues either.
I have scaled down my expectations to simpler coding or pretend coding (e.g.: making things with game engines or pre-existing things, like LabVIEW or something).

P.S.: I don't understand why so many people keep conflating programming with IT. I never do. When someone says "IT professional" I think about a desk jockey operating some application or a networking technician. Programming is a different thing, as described above. I guess DevOps and WebDevs blur the lines a bit, but not really.

CaptainNemo wrote: ↑Tue Oct 01, 2019 11:43 am P.S.: I don't understand why so many people keep conflating programming with IT. I never do. When someone says "IT professional" I think about a desk jockey operating some application or a networking technician. Programming is a different thing, as described above. I guess DevOps and WebDevs blur the lines a bit, but not really.

Agree. I didn't know exactly what you were looking for. Whenever I talk to people, they refer to programmers and developers as IT. I got tired of explaining the difference. I just go with the flow now.

That might be a bit extreme but hear me out. I still have a good relationship with my former professors at my university back home. I can send them codes/ instructions, and juniors and seniors do the work for a fee. Why don't you contact universities in the west and ask them if they would be willing to work with you?

Queef wrote: ↑Tue Oct 01, 2019 11:58 am That might be a bit extreme but hear me out. I still have a good relationship with my former professors at my university back home. I can send them codes/ instructions, and juniors and seniors do the work for a fee. Why don't you contact universities in the west and ask them if they would be willing to work with you?

I'm sure it could work for a while, until they started getting good and putting prices up, undermining the whole model of using cheaper labour in developing world to sell products for higher prices in the developed world. It sounds kind of like having your own upwork team, and that's it - once they get started they'll look around for additional people to work with. If its set up to be a conveyer belt advertising for new undergrads all the time, it could work, I guess, but the remoteness could be frustrating.

It's also very hard to find people who are any good - in every sense. Ones who were very good would perhaps be more interested a partnership in a startup, imagining unicorns and rainbows in the future. I have Finnish acquiantance who is great at C++, and charges £26/hr which is probably $35/hr I guess. I think his price is very reasonable for what he does; but he's based in the west and that works for him.
Bringing young farang over who want to put "coding internship in Thailand" on their CVs is of interest, but the snag is the ratios.

Maybe you've heard of iglu.net, it seems to work well - a lot of risk spread out, but I'm not in a position to set something like that up.

Essentially, what I would be trying to do is create a support team for my inner team, who do more tedious and repetitive coding tasks put on a conveyer by the inner team.