The invitation was for 8am, so normally it would have started at 8:30am. Before 8am, both the secretary and the city chairman were present to shake hands and chat with each member participating in the meeting. This was shared by Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee Nguyen Van Nen: "I have long wanted to meet new generation entrepreneurs, applying scientific and technological advances, innovation and creativity to build businesses that contribute to society. Therefore, today is a special occasion, opening the way for the next meetings so that I and the government leaders can listen, understand and get closer to the startup community...".
24 representatives of the Ho Chi Minh City creative startup community are structured into 4 groups: startup support units (incubation centers and accelerator programs), venture capital funds, startups at different stages and journalists, including related writers, who are also invited to attend as experts.
Having written the city's innovation diary for many years under the management of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Science and Technology until moving to become the director of Google's Gemini AI Institute, I was a bit surprised when I was assigned to be the coordinator. The requirement for startups: no advertising, no complaining, no asking for any policies for themselves and especially no long speech, otherwise you will lose your turn. And the secretary liked this: "Speaking briefly requires more careful thinking and selection to be more concise."
Indeed, everyone had their say in the 90 minutes of sharing. As teacher Gian Tu Trung said in the introduction: "Starting a business is an opportunity to rethink business: Business is making money by serving society through good products and services", the startups all focused on presenting initiatives, solutions, and lessons learned from other countries to help startups in Ho Chi Minh City achieve their proper stature and position.
For example, Ms. Tu Ngo of Touchstone Venture Capital Fund proposed the establishment of Green Innovation Hubs, bringing together businesses, investors, startups and stakeholders. This public-private partnership management model is expected to help resolve administrative procedures, sub-licenses related to business lines, or foreign investors can bring green solutions to the country more easily...
Or like Mr. Do Tran Binh Minh, General Director of AI Education, wants Ho Chi Minh City to be a pioneer in Vietnam and Southeast Asia with the vision of gathering the world's EdTech technology elite, and at the same time building and nurturing an EdTech Make in Vietnam ecosystem with enough capacity to go global. This is similar to countries like Japan, Mongolia, Indonesia, Singapore when they have solved the problem of digital teachers and equipment in the classroom (1 student 1 device), the governments of these countries will support and nurture their own EdTech ecosystem, and at the same time encourage EdTechs to develop the market to other countries (many EdTechs from Singapore have come to look at the Vietnamese market).
Mr. Bui Quang Minh, often called Minh Beta, mentioned a lot about the cultural industry. Accordingly, the city can research and propose specific mechanisms and policies to support and encourage organizations, businesses and individuals to participate in the development of the cultural industry, to participate in the creation of cultural products (such as taxes, land, investment, access to credit, etc.), especially for priority areas, with small and medium enterprises; research to establish funds to support investment in creative development. In addition, it is necessary to build a database and form a digital map of the cultural industries. Strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights on copyright and related rights in cyberspace and the digital environment, etc.
The Secretary listened and took notes, occasionally exchanging small talk with the City Chairman and the Director of the Department of Science and Technology. In his sharing, Mr. Nguyen Van Nen cited many arguments about the policies and actions of the government that are striving to further perfect the city's startup ecosystem. Continuing the message of educator Gian Tu Trung, the Secretary said that it is necessary to determine the fundamental and core values when starting a business, considering this as the compass for each startup.
Sharing with the startup community, Secretary Nen said: "Every startup has a part in choosing a word to describe their startup aspirations, so why can't I choose? I would like to choose the word Kỷ - in discipline. Whatever you do, especially when doing a startup, this word Kỷ is extremely important..."
Bung Tran
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