VNTelcom Seminar 2011 has taken place on 26th November 2011 in Paris with the theme on ICT Innovation. The seminar consists of a panel discussion between our guests and the audience on the ICT innovation investment in Vietnam. Here below are minutes of this session.
Guests:
- Prof. DUONG Nguyen Vu – Director of John von Neumann Institute, HCM City, Vietnam.
- Mr. PHAM Tran Dung – Group Strategy Director, Laposte Group, France.
- Mr. NGUYEN Canh Cuong – Commercial Counselor of Embassy of Vietnam in France.
- Mr. PHAM Huan – CEO of InfraSystem, France & Co-founder of Vietgest, Vietnam
Context
Vietnamese ICT industry is speeding up in the last decade and is now as comparable as many countries in the region. However, it seems to reach a break even line. The outsourcing strategy is based on low-cost labor which will be no longer a competitive advantage because ICT salary is getting higher in the next few years. Thus, Vietnam ICT industry needs a new strategy to sustain the growth.
In this context, innovation seems to find its place and becomes a promising answer.
ICT Innovation is based on the Research & Development. But R&D is still a new concept among Vietnamese companies in the industry. Hence, to get start, we need to invest in Research & Development.
Many questions are raised for example: How could we start a R&D center? How to fund its development? How to attract investors to invest in the Research field in Vietnam? short term, middle term & long term?,….
Education
Education plays a very important role in this process. It will supply the industry with a competent workforce to absorb new technologies, customize and create new ones.
As a representative of policy makers, Mr. Cuong said that VietNam now concentrates on development of “Maths & English” competences for the future generations. English is very important to be involved in the R&D world where most discussions & exchanges are in English. Mathematics would help to shape a good mindset. These are amongst pre-requisite ingredients to attack the R&D.
From education side, Mr. Vu presented a partnership model of John von Neumann Institute with the industry and other European universities where R&D is well appreciated.
Investment in R&D
R&D is a long term strategic investment. This requires a lot of money but it’s a “must” to develop strongly ICT
industry in particular and other industries in general.
How to finance the R&D?
Mr. Dung: Financing a R&D center may be realized via public funds or private funds. For the short term investment, this can be done with a private fund. But for grand projects or the development of innovation in the long term, this should be backed by a public fund with a strong involvement of the government (Example of Laposte Group who works with private equity to fund the development of its innovation center).
Mr. Vu: Another way is to develop the cooperation model between universities and the industries. On one hand, this helps companies to reinforce their R&D teams and on the other hand, businesses fund the research in the universities. In the Vietnamese market, JVN Institute currently has several partnership contracts with industry actors who commit to invest the Research & Development.
Considering the significant investment to develop the R&D, the targeted domain should be carefully chosen and it is one of the biggest challenges. In any case, it must be the government to take the lead and the private funds will follow as a consequent.
Some opportunities
Mr. Cuong suggested that today, people receive daily a lot of information and this takes much time to proceed and find useful one. The challenge is to optimize these proceedings and we should develop tools to help people deal with this matter.
Mr. Huan shared his view on Economy versus ecology. The current trend is to develop green businesses and ICT can contribute to this process. For instance, Cloud computing is a good example of a green technology which reduces OPEX for the businesses and still meets their needs & expectations.
In responding a question from the audience, Mr. Cuong notified us that Vietnamese population living in the rural area is decreasing drastically and not as high as previous period (80-90% of the population). Urbanization is happening quickly in Viet Nam and cities are getting bigger. Mr. Vu agreed and added that the population of the urban areas will make up 30-40% of the entire population in a very near future, thus, there is a strong potential market for the ICT industry.
Viet-Dung DAM
On behalf of VNTelecom® Organization Board.
http://vntelecom.org
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