HANOI- Apple CEO Tim Cook met with two CollaNote app developers, Elsa Speak, and Phuong Vu, director of Antiantiart, on April 15.
"I think Vietnam has a very young population and you can see that in the developers, very vibrant and very energetic. You can feel the excitement in me," Tim Cook told VnExpress on the afternoon of April 15.
Tim Cook outside a cafe in Hai Ba Trung where he met with developers. Photo: Giang Huy
At the event, he had a direct conversation with the developers of CollaNote and Elsa Speak and listened to them share about their product development journey. These are all Vietnamese applications that have made their mark on the international market.
Among them, Elsa Speak, an English learning application, is among the top 50 apps using GenAI according to a US report, used by millions of people around the world. Meanwhile, CollaNote stands out with unique features such as learning foreign languages with a translation tool, reviewing lessons with flashcards, real-time collaboration, a variety of pen tips up to 25 types, and recording synchronized with handwriting.
From left to right: Nguyen Quoc Huy - representative of CollaNote, Bryan Pelz - CEO of Serial Entrepreneur, Tim Cook - CEO of Apple and Van Dinh Hong Vu - representative of Elsa Speak. Photo: Tuan Hung
During the meeting, the Apple CEO repeatedly expressed interest and surprise at the solutions that Vietnamese developers had come up with. When asked for advice for other developers, he said they should identify their own or others’ problems, then build an application to solve that problem.
“If I were starting out, I would do the same. I would think about what I and other people are facing. You can bet that if you have a problem, many others do too,” he said.
Regarding the meeting with Apple CEO, Nguyen Quoc Huy, developer of CollaNote, called it "an opportunity that we don't know if we'll have a second chance or not".
In 2020, when Covid-19 broke out in Germany, Huy and his friends had to study remotely and needed to take notes while doing group assignments. There were subjects where text editing was not possible and many illustrations were required, so he started to come up with the idea of creating an application so that everyone could take notes together and export them to PDF format for printing. "Those were the first two ideas that inspired me to develop CollaNote," Huy said.
Tim Cook watches Van Dinh Hong Vu, co-founder and CEO of Elsa Speak, demonstrate the app's features. Photo: Tuan Hung
Meanwhile, Van Dinh Hong Vu, co-founder and CEO of Elsa Speak, said that right from the beginning, the application was determined to serve mobile users and first of all needed to run well on Apple devices. Currently, Elsa Speak uses AI to create, combining both on-device and cloud AI models. "The advantage of Apple devices is that they can run AI models quickly right on the device, to meet the need for quick exchange and Q&A with AI. Currently, the number of Elsa Speak Apple device users is about 60%," said Van Vu.
Earlier, at noon on April 15, Tim Cook visited the studio and chatted with Phuong Vu, director of Antiantiart. "I was shocked because I never thought I would meet Tim Cook, a man with a great vision and changing many things in the world. I was shocked to see him in my house," Phuong Vu said.
Tim Cook and Phuong Vu (right cover). Photo: Tuan Hung
Apple CEO Tim Cook arrived in Hanoi on the morning of April 15. During the trip, Apple said it would strengthen its commitment to Vietnam, increasing spending on suppliers, along with new progress in its clean water support initiative for local schools. "There is no place like Vietnam, a vibrant and beautiful country," Tim Cook shared.
Tim Cook was born in 1960 and joined Apple in March 1998 as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Operations and later Executive Vice President. He was appointed CEO of Apple in August 2011.
After taking the top role, Tim Cook quickly demonstrated his leadership ability by helping Apple double its revenue and profit from 2011 to 2020. By 2023, Apple became the first company in the world to reach a market capitalization of $3,000 billion. Under Tim Cook, Apple launched completely new technology products such as the Apple Watch and Vision Pro virtual reality glasses.
Luu Quy - Tuan Hung
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