Mr. Phan Van Mai: Arousing the great creative capacity of Ho Chi Minh City's youth

Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Phan Van Mai chaired a dialogue with 150 outstanding young people of the city in 2024 - Photo: QUOC HOANG

Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Phan Van Mai assessed   The dialogue is an opportunity for city leaders to promptly grasp the situation, listen to the recommendations, proposals and aspirations of young people. Thereby, promptly directing the removal of existing problems, difficulties and obstacles related to the rights and interests of young people.

"We must be aware that Ho Chi Minh City's creative capacity is enormous, and how to unleash this creative capacity," Mr. Mai emphasized.

Proposing a system of digital transformation criteria and cultural connection space

The workshop noted that in recent times, digital transformation activities to support young people in improving their skills, applying technology to start-ups and career development have been promoted.

But according to Mr. Pham Trung Tin (Binh Chanh district), due to the lack of system, sometimes digital transformation in startup activities has not developed in the right direction. This leads to investment lacking evaluation and analysis, causing losses to investors and not in line with the development orientation of the government.

Mr. Tin proposed that professional units develop a set of model criteria for digital transformation routes, digital transformation markets, digital transformation neighborhoods and hamlets. These include specific skills needed for union members, youth members and youth to promote their expertise in supporting propaganda and guiding people in implementation.

Ms. Nang Thi My Duyen (Thu Duc City) assessed that the form and quantity of cultural and artistic activities and programs in the city are still limited. She proposed that the city leaders continue to have cultural products and outdoor art performances to perform for the community.

Especially programs with great artistic value, invested in a systematic and large scale to recreate the history and culture of the city. This can become a tourist highlight of the city, thereby helping to educate the history, tradition and culture of the city's youth.

Ms. Dang Xuan Van (Phu Nhuan district) commented that young startups often lack the knowledge and necessary framework for each startup and capital raising process - Photo: QUOC HOANG

National Vovinam athlete Nguyen Thi Ngoc Tram proposed the initiative to form a "Ho Chi Minh City Young Talent Community". This is an ideal environment, a place to gather outstanding individuals in fields such as sports, culture, arts, startups... From there, it helps young people share ideas, find teammates and receive support from domestic and international experts.

Ho Chi Minh City welcomes many initiatives from young people on building digital government

Mr. Phan Van Mai stated that digital transformation will promote the city's development. The entire city is preparing a digital platform for each neighborhood, gradually implementing digital government with the goal of handling 70% of public administrative procedures on a digital platform.

From the process of preparing steps to build a digital government, Mr. Mai suggested that young people participate in digital human resources and contribute with initiatives. Many spaces and addresses to receive initiatives are available at the Ho Chi Minh City Digital Transformation Center. "But it seems that we have not proactively proposed solutions," Mr. Mai worried.

He believes that the issue of developing more festivals and cultural programs is appropriate and should be accepted. All for the goal of making Ho Chi Minh City an event city, so that every month there are large activities of national and international scale.

Overview of the dialogue between leaders of Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee and 150 outstanding young people - Photo: QUOC HOANG

Capital solutions to support startups and entrepreneurship

Ms. Dang Xuan Van (Phu Nhuan District, Director of Felix Zone Company Limited), believes that young startups often lack the knowledge and framework necessary for each startup and capital raising process. Therefore, synthesizing, selecting, and streamlining knowledge, then packaging and replicating knowledge packages as well as standard incubator models to popularize to the city's youth is extremely necessary.

Ms. Le Thi Tuong Vy (Deputy Director of the Youth Startup Support Center, BSSC) shared that most startups do not have assets and currently have to access unofficial capital sources with very high interest rates. This causes a loss of competitive advantage and makes it difficult to compete.

While the youth start-up support fund has long been considered one of the solutions to support young people in the process of establishing and starting a business. However, due to many objective conditions, this fund has temporarily stopped lending due to lack of capital.

"From there, we hope that the city leaders will pay attention and direct to remove legal difficulties so that the Youth Startup Support Fund can continue to operate and provide loans to young people who want to start a business," Ms. Tuong Vy shared.

Ms. Vo Thi Thuy Duong (District 12) shared that currently young people are not really bold enough to borrow money to start a business. There are many reasons, such as not having enough knowledge, not being bold enough to start a business, still facing many difficulties in procedures, loan amounts differing from the scale of the project, access opportunities and many other factors related to the scale of operations and management of policy sources and funds.

From there, Ms. Duong proposed building a network model connecting young people to help each other develop the economy; encourage young businesses to take the lead in technological innovation, increase labor productivity, improve production and business efficiency, build brands for integration and development; further promote the start-up movement among students and young people.

Mr. Phan Van Mai, Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee - Photo: QUOC HOANG

Mr. Phan Van Mai acknowledged the desire to start a business, to rise up and express themselves, and to contribute to the development of the city’s youth. But he also advised young people to be cautious and to prepare themselves in terms of knowledge, skills, and orientation.

Regarding this idea, he asked the Ho Chi Minh City Youth Union to be the focal point in designing programs and courses to foster knowledge for each process of starting a business, raising capital and managing business...

"We are building Ho Chi Minh City into an innovation center, an ASEAN-level creative startup center. Over the past time, we have built institutions, infrastructure, human resources and environment to prepare for this. I say this so that you know that Ho Chi Minh City is a center of innovation, creative startups," he said.

Establishing the youth path

Mr. Huynh Van Toan - Vice Chairman of the Council for Professional Training and Skills of the Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam Youth Union, General Director of Sao Bac Dau Youth Union, proposed to the city leaders to build Pham Ngoc Thach Street into a "youth street". Assigned to the Youth Union to manage, this is the place where political, cultural, artistic events take place, a destination for young people, connecting interests and diversifying the city's youth classes.

Build Aspiration Park

Ho Duc Hoan, the 2018 Outstanding Young Citizen of Ho Chi Minh City, said that the Aspiration for Power is not just the aspiration of young people, but the common aspiration of many generations of Vietnamese people. From here, he proposed the desire to build a park named Aspiration, to honor individuals and organizations that have contributed to Ho Chi Minh City in the past, present and future.

"If people who come to America have the Avenue of Fame, then when they come to Ho Chi Minh City, they must know about the Aspiration Park. This is a place where aspirations converge and take flight, so that people in Ho Chi Minh City can feel the common aspirations and common goals, thereby striving to build a civilized, modern, and humane city," said Mr. Hoan.

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/ong-phan-van-mai-khoi-day-nang-luc-sang-tao-to-lon-cua-gioi-tre-tp-hcm-20241011114241712.htm