Classroom 4.0 nurtures future startups

Not only a place to impart knowledge, today's lecture halls have become "incubators" for breakthrough ideas.

Electric bicycle project of Pham Son Loc (right) and Tran Cong Tien.

From robotics workshops to high-tech labs, many students have turned their academic projects into commercial products, paving the way for entry into the global startup scene.

Passion from school

Pham Son Loc - a student majoring in Automation and Tran Cong Tien - a student majoring in Refrigeration and Air Conditioning, University of Technology (Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City), became close friends thanks to their shared passion for robot design. These two students have participated in the Robocon playground for 3 years, competing to design smart, flexible robots to overcome challenges. The sleepless nights at the robot design workshop have ignited the passion for exploring technology, nurturing the startup ideas of these two dynamic young people.

After graduation, Loc and Tien kept in touch regularly. The two former students discussed many times about an electric-assist bicycle, a combination of a regular bicycle and an electric bike. This type of bike uses human power to pedal like a traditional bicycle but with an additional motor, called an electric-assist bicycle. With their passion and experience in designing robots from their student days, Loc and Tien founded the Vierobot project, specializing in manufacturing electric-assist bicycles.

After more than a year of research, with the support of friends and teachers at the university, two former students have successfully created a power-assist system that can be attached to any type of regular bicycle to turn it into a power-assist bicycle. This system uses an electric motor, control circuit, battery, display clock... with a total mass of about 5kg. Based on the signal from the pedal force sensor, the control circuit analyzes and calculates the appropriate force to maintain the speed of the vehicle.

According to Pham Son Loc, the group has researched a controller with an optimal algorithm, helping cyclists to barely hear the engine sound. According to estimates and experiments, with 1 hour of cycling, a normal person can travel 10 - 15 km, while a power-assisted bicycle can reach 30 - 40 km at a faster speed.

Users still have to pedal as hard as traditional bicycles, but the power assist helps extend the travel distance. Thanks to optimized design and production, the price of the group's electric power assist kit has been reduced from 16-18 million VND to more than 5 million VND. The cost reduction has helped the group's technology attract the attention of investors.

Tran Cong Tien said that the upcoming project will develop an ecosystem including a management system, safety, anti-theft, maintenance and charging stations. “The group will pilot a model of electric bicycles and charging stations for a business in the Ho Chi Minh City High-Tech Park, serving employees traveling from the company headquarters to the metro station,” Tien excitedly shared.

Also passionate about startups, Le Tung, when he was a student at the Faculty of Information Technology, University of Natural Sciences (Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City), built a part-time job website for students, earning more than 5,000 USD. With his student experience and knowledge accumulated while studying for a master's degree at the University of New South Wales (Australia), Tung developed a high-tech agricultural startup project, applying artificial intelligence and robots to raise aquatic products such as shrimp and crab.

Le Tung’s automation system is capable of self-cleaning water using IoT technology, self-feeding through grippers, and using artificial intelligence to determine when crabs molt for harvest. This technology has been granted an intellectual property patent in the US and is completing the copyright registration application in Vietnam. “After many projects, I realized that the journey from student ideas to reality is a long one, requiring a lot of effort,” Tung shared.

Mr. Le Tung's high-tech crab farming project presented to investors.

Support resources for student startups

According to MSc. Le Nhat Quang - Director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Ho Chi Minh City National University, in recent times, the unit has focused on building an innovation and startup ecosystem in the school, especially at member schools of Ho Chi Minh City National University, through training, consulting and incubation programs.

Specifically, programs such as Entrepreneur Journey, Startup Open Day, and notably the CiC (Creative Idea Challenge) annually attract more than 1,000 students with more than 300 projects from over 200 educational institutions. The unit organizes more than 30 training courses each year on entrepreneurship and innovation for the community, students, staff, teachers, etc.

According to Master Quang, these activities create motivation, inspiration and gradually change the mindset of the young generation about startup culture, while developing startup skills and the ability to apply technology to solve social problems. The programs implemented by the unit contribute to training comprehensive talents, with social responsibility, leadership capacity and startup thinking.

“We connect the university environment with startups to promote knowledge transfer, facilitate projects to access research facilities, develop products and services. At the same time, provide startup support services, connect and cooperate with parties in the startup ecosystem,” said Master Quang.

To help projects access capital and expand the market, Ho Chi Minh City High-Tech Park has developed the program "Demo Day 2025 - Connecting domestic and foreign investors". Prof. Dr. Nguyen Ky Phung - Head of the Management Board of Ho Chi Minh City High-Tech Park said that the program is organized periodically, creating a real playground for young people to practice, perfect their business models and present their projects to prestigious domestic and foreign investment funds.

The Ho Chi Minh City Hi-Tech Park works closely with partners such as Vietnam Silicon Valley and a network of experts to provide in-depth consulting services, from product development, business strategy building to professional capital raising skills. “We are committed to accompanying and creating favorable conditions for investors to find future ‘unicorns’ and startups to realize global aspirations,” affirmed Professor Phung.

MSc. Le Nhat Quang said that to promote startup projects in universities, the State needs to perfect policies to develop the science and technology market - innovation and financial market.

The government needs to strongly support the development of small and medium-sized enterprises and create a sandbox mechanism to promote business innovation. In addition, there needs to be a strong coordination and support mechanism from the local level for science, technology and innovation activities in universities.

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Source: https://baolaocai.vn/giang-duong-40-uom-mam-nhung-startup-tuong-lai-post879710.html