Will Thailand beat Indonesia to offer Asia’s first digital nomad visa? Many digital nomads in Asia are working illegally. Photo: Shutterstock The 21st century will be the millennium which resurrects for humans a dilemma which has been dormant for 10,000 years - humans will be able to ask themselves: Am I a Nomad or a Settler? wrote tech pioneer Tsugio Makimoto and author David Manners in their 1997 book, Digital Nomad, which presented theories on how technology would change our working lives and introduced us to the now ubiquitous term used as the title.
In the decades since, digital nomads - loosely defined as location-independent remote workers who rely only on a decent internet connection to do their job - have gone mainstream, and for many footloose e-lancers, Asia is the region of choice. Ask any search engine which countries are best for digital nomads and Indonesia (read: Bali) and Thailand often come out on top.
SMART VISA ATTRACTS INTERNATIONAL TALENTS
10
published : 3 Mar 2021 at 13:50
SPONSORED CONTENT
10
Aiming to attract international talents whose expertise can play an important role in driving digital and tech startups and all other targeted industries towards using modern smart technologies,
the Thailand Board of Investment is granting its “Smart Visa” to qualified professionals. Since 2018, the professionals and their family members who pass the evaluations set by the BOI and the National Innovation Agency (NIA)1 have been granted permission to stay in Thailand up to a maximum of four years, with exemption from the need to acquire a work permit.
Professionals working in the following thirteen industries are eligible for the Smart Visa program: