Vietnamese engineer from RMIT and his journey to the world at the age of 23

Big Prizes from a Small Moment

It was mid-June 2024, two weeks after several online newspapers in Vietnam ran a headline: Vietnamese student wins Apple award with "chewing count" app . That year, Thach was only 22 years old, but he represented Vietnam in the list of winners at the global competition with a "contemplative" and life-affirming work called Mindful Eating.

Chàng kỹ sư Việt từ RMIT và hành trình vươn ra thế giới ở tuổi 23 - Ảnh 1. — Ho Le Minh Thach is among the top 2% of RMIT University students globally to be honoured by the Vice-Chancellor for Academic Excellence in 2024

According to what was shared, Thach started the Mindful Eating project from the moment of observing while eating. Thach realized that most people have the unhealthy habit of eating quickly and not chewing thoroughly. Thach himself is a slow eater, feels the benefits of this habit, so he wanted to do something to remind people to eat more slowly, change their habits to better manage their health. So the Mindful Eating project was born, and was submitted to the competition...

At RMIT, it is important to know that there are many competitions in the field of technology that students have the opportunity and are encouraged to participate in. And Mindful Eating is the project that starts the journey of developing technology-based products to serve people, contributing to a better life.

Following that flow, at the end of 2024, Thach continued to be in the Healium group (with Truong Nhat Anh, Dinh Gia Huu Phuoc and Nguyen Duc Minh) to complete the HealthLight project - an AI medical information system and won the award for the best software engineering and information technology project at the graduation project exhibition of the Faculty of Science , Engineering and Technology.

Chàng kỹ sư Việt từ RMIT và hành trình vươn ra thế giới ở tuổi 23 - Ảnh 2. — Ho Le Minh Thach and his team Healium won the Best Software Engineering and IT Project award for the AI Medical Information System Project.

Become an international engineer at the age of 23

In fact, while many young people are still struggling with "learning one way but practicing another", for Ho Le Minh Thach, everything became simple when he decided to choose "RMIT as a part of his youth".

Sharing four reasons for choosing to study Software Engineering at RMIT instead of another school (including: prestigious degree; 100% English environment; advanced learning program and "network of industry partners"), Thach explained further: " RMIT not only provides professional knowledge but also creates opportunities for students to demonstrate their skills to employers, with big names in the country and internationally. This opportunity has helped me intern and accumulate experience so that when I graduate, I will have more than 1 year of practical work experience ".

Thach connected with NAB - one of Australia's major banks right during the career orientation week organized by RMIT in his second year, then continued to work for another major Australian financial group, ANZ, as an iOS software developer, even though he had not graduated yet.

Now, at the age of 23, Thach is an international engineer living and working in the dream city of Melbourne (Australia). Observing the labor market in the transition period in this country, gradually replacing the systems used for the past 20-30 years with new technologies, requiring a large workforce to meet the demand, as well as building a complete system to increase competitiveness, the RMIT alumni also quickly recognized the "great potential" for himself as well as young Gen Z who love technology to proactively learn and seize opportunities in the future.

Chàng kỹ sư Việt từ RMIT và hành trình vươn ra thế giới ở tuổi 23 - Ảnh 3. — At the age of 23, Ho Le Minh Thach is an international engineer living and working in the dream city of Melbourne.

Faced with many concerns about whether artificial intelligence (AI) can make human resources in the technology engineering industry inferior? Thach determined that AI can only support but cannot replace humans. "Just like how we still learn to calculate by hand from a young age even though we can use computers to get results faster, understanding the nature is still an important foundation. AI is a tool, and humans need to understand enough to operate and handle that tool properly," Thach analyzed.

Behind success is a close-knit community and lifelong learning skills

In today's era, not only technology but also many other areas of life are constantly changing. Without being equipped with lifelong learning skills early on, new engineers like Thach cannot easily proactively update new technology trends, as well as know how to select what is suitable for their usage goals. The university environment at RMIT has provided Thach with a solid foundation of specialized knowledge and skills, from front-end programming, back-end, development and operations (DevOps) to data and AI. In addition, it comes with confidence, adaptive and creative thinking, and a long-term, cohesive community.

And, as a continuous flow, the message to young people who love engineering and technology today from former student Ho Le Minh Thach is still "don't hesitate to pursue your passion". Because a good engineer does not only write code but also has to always think outside the box, explore new approaches to create useful products for the community.