Pressure is an opportunity to be more determined.

Entrepreneur Nguyen Kim Anh, Product Director of VinBigdata: Pressure is an opportunity to be more determined

If VinBigdata relied only on code, it would not have been able to launch ViGPT - the first "Vietnamese version of ChatGPT" for end users. In that journey, the Product Manager was the one who ignited the passion, leading the team to "reach the finish line" successfully.

Entrepreneur Nguyen Kim Anh, Product Director of VinBigdata

Finding ways to survive in a fierce market

For a long time, people working in the technology sector have been considered to be somewhat cold and taciturn. Having to sit and work with hundreds of programming commands every day, dryness and rigidity have probably become an “occupational disease” for IT people. However, Mr. Nguyen Kim Anh, Product Director of VinBigdata, does not think so.

Throughout the interview with Investment Newspaper reporters, the smile was always present on the face of this 8X director. It is this positive energy that has helped VinBigdata accelerate in the fierce AI (artificial intelligence) race.

When mentioning the keyword AI, Mr. Kim Anh was extremely excited. According to him, the past year was a period of explosion for this technology. Look no further than the Consumer Electronics Show CES 2024 (USA), AI has been integrated into all kinds of products, from televisions, washing machines, to computers, robots. Whether small start-ups or large enterprises, no one wants to miss out on this new trend.

“Although some products are not very effective in practice, we should still appreciate such pioneering companies. It is these ideas that will open up new movements and promote the progress of science and technology,” Mr. Kim Anh shared.

Looking back, large language models (LLMs) – the precursor technology to today’s AI chatbots – have been around for decades. Many innovative ideas were hatched then, but hardware barriers kept them out of reach.

The AI trends we admire today are the result of the will and ambition of many technologists who have not turned their backs on their code.

ViGPT itself, VinBigdata’s latest generative AI application solution, was born in such a context. Although the product was launched right when the AI trend exploded, this was a plan that the Company had cherished since its inception.

The real change came when OpenAI unexpectedly launched ChatGPT. The whole world went crazy over the capabilities of this AI chatbot. Many technology giants such as Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc. rushed to launch similar products to compete, and VinBigdata was no exception.

I was most impressed with the book 'Life changes when we change'. We cannot face and handle difficulties with a negative mood. Therefore, I always see pressure as an opportunity for myself to become more determined and focused. For people working in technology, without pressure, they will easily come up with a product that lacks depth.

- Businesswoman Nguyen Kim Anh

“The AI technology trend is a wave that comes very quickly. If we are slow and do not launch products on time, the Company will fall behind. Therefore, all VinBigdata employees have devoted all their resources and enthusiasm to shorten the time to launch ViGPT as much as possible,” said Mr. Kim Anh.

However, the company's team still faced another difficulty, which was finding the key point to create the product's competitiveness. If ViGPT did not have unique points, this project would be forgotten among dozens of AI chatbots springing up like mushrooms after the rain. After many tense meetings and sleepless nights, Mr. Kim Anh and his colleagues found the answer to this problem.

“We do not aim for a product that follows the 'one size fits all' direction. Instead, ViGPT focuses on serving the specific requirements of each specific customer group. Businesses can train ViGPT with internal data and what they get will be an AI chatbot that best suits their needs,” affirmed the VinBigdata product director.

In addition, ViGPT is also optimized to accurately and objectively answer specific questions about Vietnam, including regional cultural characteristics, history, tourism, literature and common health knowledge. Not only that, the operating cost of this product is also many times lower than that of famous AI chatbots in the world. Focusing on niche markets and trying to solve customer problems is the "trump card" that helps ViGPT compete with big competitors.

Finally, on December 27, 2023, ViGPT was introduced to the public. The product received more than 25,000 trial registrations and 10,000 users in 15 days of community version testing. However, the impressive numbers above still could not fill the worries in the mind of the VinBigdata Product Director.

“The community’s acceptance is the development team’s greatest joy. However, this is also a pressure for us as everyone is placing a lot of expectations on ViGPT. The team is planning and building solutions to continue optimizing the product,” said Mr. Kim Anh.

In 2024, VinBigdata will continue to perfect ViGPT and move towards the goal of commercialization. It is expected that by the end of March 2024, the community version of ViGPT will be released for free to non-profit organizations. These units only have to pay operating costs, with prices much more competitive than other models.

The launch of ViGPT marks the technological mastery of the domestic engineering team and is proof that Vietnamese enterprises are completely autonomous in exploiting and protecting national data security. In the AI race, as a pioneer, VinBigdata has faced, is facing, and will face many challenges. However, the market always needs creators. Not only a chatbot tool, ViGPT is also a source of inspiration for a generation of AI products labeled "made in Vietnam" to reach out to the world.

Pressure is a positive thing

During his career, Mr. Kim Anh has always felt proud of Vietnamese technology engineers. In the field of AI alone, the domestic workforce is not inferior to those in developed countries. At the headquarters of Big Tech (the largest technology companies in the US), it is not difficult to find programmers from Vietnam.

“Universities have begun to focus on and develop more AI-related majors. Students are selected very strictly. For example, at the University of Technology, computer science is the most popular major and has a very high entrance score,” said Mr. Kim Anh.

Not only that, businesses in Vietnam are also very open to AI. Companies are always ready to “take shortcuts and get ahead” to shorten the gap with foreign competitors. This factor helps AI staff have a “place to show their skills” and freely experiment with new ideas without fear of failure.

“The key is to motivate the members. If the people who create the product do not believe in what they are doing, the project will hardly succeed,” Mr. Kim Anh confided.

Behind the product that is well received by the community is a series of non-stop working days of the programming team. In the context of increasingly fierce competition in the field of AI technology, pressure is present every day, every hour. This is the time for Mr. Kim Anh to promote his role as a "locomotive".

According to VinBigdata Product Director, a good leader needs to clearly understand the strengths and weaknesses of each employee. They will have to know when their subordinates are having difficulty and when they need to make a breakthrough to effectively distribute work. Not only that, the leader himself must also be calm under all pressure. A sigh of frustration can also extinguish the enthusiasm of the whole company.

Just like when looking at the AI trend, many people fear that they will soon be replaced by machines. However, from Mr. Kim Anh's perspective, this challenge is actually an opportunity. With the effective support of AI, the workforce will now contribute more value to society. Working time is shortened, but efficiency is higher. This is the real goal that AI products aim for.

In addition, the presence of this technology is also a reminder to workers. No matter how advanced artificial intelligence is, it is still behind human intelligence. As long as you continuously improve your expertise and keep learning, no machine or AI can take away job opportunities from workers. In a world of constant change, no one will be left behind, if everyone has the same determination to move forward.

Source