Training human resources to serve the startup ecosystem and digital economy

On January 23, in Hanoi, the National Innovation Center (NIC), the Ministry of Planning and Investment, in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), organized a summary of human resources activities for innovation - startup ecosystem (USAID-WISE). Attending the event were Mr. Douglas Balko, Director of the Department of State Administration and Economic Growth, USAID Vietnam; Mr. Vu Quoc Huy, Director of NIC, along with training partners, representatives of universities and colleges, etc.

In his opening speech, Mr. Vu Quoc Huy, Director of NIC, affirmed that Vietnam is considered one of the countries with a fairly fast digital economic growth rate in the ASEAN region. In September 2019, the Politburo issued Resolution No. 52-NQ/TW on “Some guidelines and policies to proactively participate in the fourth industrial revolution”, setting a target that by 2030, the digital economy will account for about 30% of GDP.

Mr. Vu Quoc Huy said that NIC is a unit established by the Prime Minister in Decision No. 1269/QD-TTg dated October 2, 2019, to realize the aspirations, policies and orientations for innovation of Vietnam in the 4.0 Revolution, under the Ministry of Planning and Investment, assigned to implement activities to support and develop the innovation and startup ecosystem, contributing to the innovation of the growth model on the basis of science and technology development and business models, innovation management and therefore, is the focal unit to coordinate with partner units to implement USAID-WISE activities.

According to the Director of NIC, in the 3 years of implementation, the project's activities are aimed at 3 main target groups including: Strengthening basic digital skills, developing the digital skills training market and innovative financial solutions for education. NIC has coordinated with many partners in both the public and private sectors to organize many training courses, conferences and in-depth seminars to address issues related to the development of high-quality human resources in the project's focus areas such as AI, cloud computing, product development, smart factories, etc.

After a period of implementation, USAID-WISE activities have reached many partners with a high level of spread, and the activities have also been assessed as effective and have had an impact on beneficiaries. The summarized figures show positive and noteworthy results. The activities have not only been successful in reaching out to non-urban areas and vulnerable groups such as workers, but also effective in expanding connections with partners and networks, especially the network of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Centers of universities and colleges - the cradle of accessing the intellectual force of institutes and schools.

Video clip recording project activities and results (Source: USAID-NIC)

“This is not the end, this is the beginning of a new journey to review the activities that have been carried out, evaluate the effectiveness, and also an opportunity to learn from experience and propose directions for future activities and cooperation between the Ministry of Planning and Investment, NIC and USAID in particular, and cooperation of the elements that help develop human resources for Vietnam in general,” said Mr. Vu Quoc Huy.

Sharing the same view with Mr. Vu Quoc Huy, Mr. Douglas Balko, Director of the Department of State Administration and Economic Growth, USAID Vietnam also expressed his delight at the initial results of the project. Mr. Douglas Balko believes that this will be the first step to continue developing high-quality human resources to serve the digital economy that Vietnam is implementing as well as Vietnam's goal of becoming an upper-middle-income country by 2030.

Presenting about USAID-WISE activities, Mr. Phan Vinh Quang, Head of the Expert Group, said that with a financial resource of 2.2 million USD sponsored by USAID and about 1 million USD from partners, WISE has worked with partners such as: Bkacad (University of Technology), Funix, VietAI, imgroup, AI Education, gemo, AES Vietnam, Codegym... to organize more than 300 training courses, recruitment/communication events; connecting more than 500 expert lecturers to participate in the programs, from which, the lecturers returned to train digital skills for about more than 1,900 students nationwide. In addition, USAID-WISE activities also have about 1,500 students trained by partners with a budget of about 1 million USD; The activity also built 10 tools and research to serve the advanced training and retraining of human resources ready for the 4.0 industrial revolution, including websites, research,.../.

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