Ngeth Angkeaphal
Ngeth Angkeaphal comes from a family of 12 siblings; some died during the Khmer Rouge, leaving five survivors. His first encounter with a computer was when he joined DDD in 2011. He started as data entry staff and moved up step by step to team leader, project Administrator, and finally project manager before leaving in 2017. DDD’s flexibility allowed him to study in the morning and work in the afternoon, or vice versa. "I always imagine—if I hadn't joined DDD, I might not even have been able to finish my university education," he says. He now works at ABA Bank, earning about triple what he made at DDD.
DDD, he says, didn’t feel like just a workplace. They arranged retreats to provinces like Kirirom, Kep, and Kampot, sharing expenses and becoming like family. The best part of DDD, he says, is that it recruits people even if they start with zero skills and develops them into skilled human resources. The shortcoming is that as a social enterprise directing profits to support vulnerable groups and fund operations, it cannot pay salaries as high as commercial companies. His advice for DDD: add more training and capacity building to catch up with modern technology, including AI, so trainees remain competitive with evolving technology, and continue providing the foundation skills in computers, English, and soft skills like communication and professionalism.
