CEO Phygital Labs Huy Nguyen: Aspiration to turn Vietnam into a 'technology dragon'

At the 2023 conference summarizing the agricultural sector's work, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan presented Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh with a special vase with a profound message from President Ho Chi Minh: "If our farmers are rich, our country will be rich. If our agriculture is prosperous, our country will be prosperous." This special vase is equipped with an "encrypted label" to help identify the product, provide information about the artisan, the origin, the creation and manufacturing process, the name, and the story associated with the work. With this chip, the traditional rural craft products "quintessence from the earth - born from fire" are immediately breathed into life, their value is increased, both unique and vivid. According to Minister Le Minh Hoan, the fingerprint-shaped encrypted label on the ceramic vase suggests "touch to connect" the agricultural and rural development sector with digital technology, with the world of diverse industries and fields, integrating multiple values for agricultural and rural products. Previously, in early November 2023, at the inauguration ceremony of the National Innovation Center (NIC), Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh also stopped for a long time to visit the digital physical technology introduction area of Phygital Labs. Here, the Prime Minister saw the Vietnamese Nghe mascot cast according to the prototype at the Temple of Literature relic with an integrated chip attached. Using a smartphone to scan the product will have full information about its origin, size, 3D image, legend... The mysterious "character" that created this surprise is Nomion technology of Phygital Labs. And the "father" of Vietnam's first digital physical technology solution is Huy Nguyen, co-founder of Phygital Labs. From the youngest senior director of Google with a salary of nearly 1 million USD and a bright future, Huy Nguyen returned to Vietnam with the aspiration of using technology to spread culture, bringing Vietnamese products to the world.

CEO Phygital Labs Huy Nguyen

In 2012, after passing 20 rounds of rigorous interviews, Huy joined Google. It took the young engineer only 5 years to become Google's youngest senior manager. At Google, Huy caught the eye of Google co-founder Sergey Brin and was among the top people who dared to think and do, to work with them to accomplish things that the world thought were unthinkable. Huy was persuaded and assigned to take on Google's "crazy" and "unimaginable" projects.

“I have to constantly come up with new ideas and make efforts to complete them, together with Google, to conquer big dreams. Google is an ideal environment, helping me have enough courage and confidence to carry out my crazy, bold ideas. These experiences have helped me gain valuable lessons about pioneering thinking and belief in technology that can change the world for the better. The journey at Google is a stepping stone for me to have the confidence to conquer even bigger and more strange things,” Huy said. A typical example is the “1 Billion People Initiative” project with the desire to bring the Internet to the most remote and isolated lands in the world, areas forgotten by the world, countries under the burning Sahara desert, the frigid Arctic lands, or the mysterious Amazon jungle. The experiences of rolling from deserts to old forests, snowy mountains, crossing dozens of countries with many ethnic groups have helped Huy have a multi-dimensional perspective and especially witness the great values that technology can create for people. To realize this wish, Google announced that employees who want to participate in the initiative should send their ideas, no matter how crazy, and the best ideas will be selected to facilitate implementation. Many breakthrough ideas have been sent from the use of hot air balloons, solar-powered planes, Internet transmitters on trains... have been born and many ideas have become revolutionary products today. Huy's group proposed the idea that if it is not possible to transmit Internet under the ground or the seabed, they will shoot it into the sky and use satellites to receive and relay it to these lands. Now, satellite Internet is familiar, but 10 years ago, Internet via satellite was considered a very crazy idea and no one believed it would be feasible. However, after a presentation filled with passion and a strong fighting spirit, Google co-founder Sergey Brin signed a check worth millions of dollars for Huy's team to start working on the project. And it was Huy who traveled around the world, writing the first lines of code for this project. After many months of persistent testing, Huy was truly overwhelmed when he received the first Internet package marked "Huy". The project's technological success gave Huy great faith in miracles if he had the strength to dream big and make them come true. After this success, Huy's team also implemented many other famous projects such as Google Station, providing free Wi-Fi to tens of millions of Indians, Indonesians, Filipinos and many other countries around the world; Google Fiber Operations System project - 1 Gbps Internet fiber optic network to more than 1 million users in the US... In May 2017, Huy was appointed to level 6, becoming the youngest senior manager of Google at that time. In a high position, an interesting job, an income of nearly 1 million USD/year, Huy had a turning point. The turning point took place in 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic occurred all over the world and Huy happened to be stuck in Vietnam. It must also be said that, during the years of studying and working in the US, Huy always had a dream to contribute his strength, bringing good things to his homeland. "The time studying and working in the US and especially the time traveling around countries on many continents further strengthened Huy's determination, when he felt that he had brought technological advances to many places in the world, but was still a round zero in his own homeland, when the whole of Vietnam was enthusiastically moving forward to use technology to digitally transform the country", Huy recalled. This decision made many people regret and worry about Huy. When hearing Huy's intention to quit Google to start a business, his relatives, friends and company colleagues strongly opposed it. Google also discussed with Huy in the hope of stopping his intention to quit his job. His family considered it a "terrible" thing. They were even more worried when he chose the blockchain technology as a startup field, a field that was still very new and had many risks at that time. In fact, since 2016, when he was still working at Google, Huy used blockchain technology to write bandwidth bidding programs using smart contracts. At that time, not many people knew about this technology, but Huy researched and used it because of its convenience and efficiency. It was the great potential that new technology brings to increase the value of many aspects of life, not just cryptocurrency as many people mistakenly thought, that made Huy choose to start a business in this field.

Traveling gives Huy Nguyen many new feelings about the world.

Returning to Vietnam, Huy brought with him the belief that Vietnam would have to pioneer a new technology to be able to reach out to the world, and could not continue to follow behind, doing things that people had done many years ago. At that time in Vietnam, blockchain was a very new technology that helped Vietnam get to the starting line on par with developed countries in the world. “Huy believed that blockchain could solve bigger problems, change many aspects of life, create products and help blockchain products create benefits for the digital economy, then people would see more value, because blockchain is not just crypto,” Huy shared.

During his journey across Vietnam in 2022, Huy visited Non Nuoc Stone Sculpture Village in Da Nang. Huy was fascinated by the stories of unique works meticulously carved from rare sedimentary seashells thousands of years old, the profound meaning of each story, and the top-notch techniques and skills to carve out the soul and spirit of the work. But Huy could not help but feel sorry for the talented and skillful artisans, the excellent unique works covered with dust by time. “Vietnamese products are so good, so proud, how can we spread the works with profound cultural values of Vietnam? How can we elevate these works to their true value? Moreover, who will be the ones to tell the stories behind the works to the next generation?”, Huy pondered.

The more opportunities Huy has to meet people working in these fields, the more confident he is that his products and technology are solving their difficulties and pains. That is also a source of motivation for Huy to be determined to start a business with Start-up Phygital Labs. As one of the first writers of research papers on digital physics, Huy then returned to the US to learn about how US companies are doing this very new technology. Foreign funds and experts in Silicon Valley also commented that digital physics technology applied in Vietnam and Southeast Asian countries is the most suitable, because this region is still in the early stages of digital transformation, there are still many things that can be completely rebuilt. After more than a year of researching and testing this technology, Phygital Labs was officially born.

Vietnam currently has countless craft villages, countless works, assets, and valuable products, but due to the limitations of space and time, the stories have not been told or have not been fully told. Even when fully told, the stories are not closely linked to physical products, making it difficult to spread widely and increase their value. Therefore, Huy believes that the mission of Phygital Labs is to use pioneering technology to spread Vietnamese culture and products and proudly tell about the quality of products, the quintessence of craft villages, and the talents of Vietnamese artisans globally. Digital physics solves the problem of digital identification for all things, is a bridge to bring a product from real life to the Internet to exploit great values such as promoting tourism, products, assets, but also serving business, spreading culture, and enhancing the value of items.

Currently, Phygital Labs has approached and brought its application to fashion products such as Ortho, agricultural products such as Le J' Coffee, The Ho Tieu, handicrafts such as Non Nuoc Fine Arts Stone, Hue Monuments Museum, Nghe Van Mieu - Quoc Tu Giam mascot... to identify numbers, put them on digital museums and then use them to serve education, promotion, exhibition and product trade. For example, with the digital museum, customers can examine each type of ceramic sculpture product identified by numbers, can learn about the origin, history, and cultural stories associated with this product. Customers can buy products without worrying about the brand, quality or transparency of the product.

Minister of Agriculture and Development Le Minh Hoan presented Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh with a ceramic vase with a Nomion chip.

Every start-up has a dream and aspiration to become a unicorn. But Phydital Labs' dream is to help Vietnam become a dragon in technology, spread Vietnamese culture, and popularize Vietnamese products to the world. According to Huy, for a start-up to become a unicorn or create great influence, there must be breakthrough development, solving the problems of humanity. Only by going global can this be done. "Nomion's dream is to introduce and sell products from industries that have been "abandoned" by digital transformation, not only in Vietnam, but also in many low-lying areas and regions that need support globally," Huy shared. There must be many Vietnamese products in the digital physical space to be able to bring the story of Vietnam far and wide. Phygital Labs' plan for 2024-2025 is to focus on maximizing the application of new technology in the Vietnamese market by applying it to fields such as culture, handicrafts, agriculture, art, etc. Furthermore, within the next 2 years, it will advance to Southeast Asia. This is a market of hundreds of millions of people with a large room for development because it is rich in history, culture and is a "new land" for the world. Huy's project received great support from investors, partners and friends from the US. They also believe in the potential of digital physics and believe that Vietnam and Southeast Asia are the most suitable places to start this journey. After Phygital Labs successfully "covers" the Vietnamese and Southeast Asian markets, it will be a step to reach out to the world.

“I believe that in the next 5-10 years, digital physics - identifying all things will become an essential link in the technological process, just like how AI and Chat GPT are currently penetrating into all industries in life. The Phygital Labs team will be the pioneer to realize the dream of spreading Vietnamese culture and products globally,” Huy shared. A digital country that wants to have new unicorns needs to have a spirit of acceptance, encouragement to experiment with new technologies, and give startups new creative space. Hopefully, Phygital Labs with digital physics technology identifying all things will soon solve Vietnam's problems, helping Vietnam break all limits and develop to its full potential, as the wish of “the person returning from Silicon Valley” Huy Nguyen.

Founder Huy Nguyen - CEO Phygital Labs + Graduated with honors in Electrical - Electronics Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley (USA). + Member of the Executive Committee of the Vietnam Information Technology Association. + Technology consultant, Angel Investor of many domestic and foreign startup projects. + Head of Blockchain Technology Department at Funix Online University. + Technical consultant for Blockchain Labs under NIC, Chief Architect for Da Nang Chain. + Huy Nguyen spent more than 10 years working at Google and Silicon Valley before returning to Vietnam and co-founding many technology projects, owning many patents and highly appreciated research projects in the field of network infrastructure in the US.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung visited Phygital Labs' booth at the National Innovation Center (NIC) in Hoa Lac.

Huu Tuan - Baodautu.vn

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