Taking bold steps will create the path.

Ms. Duong Tuong Nhi, Head of the Design Thinking Village, Techfest Vietnam: Taking bold steps will create the path.

Starting from scratch in the innovation industry, Ms. Duong Tuong Nhi has always been passionately dedicated to contributing to building the innovation and startup ecosystem alongside Techfest Vietnam.

Ms. Duong Tuong Nhi, Head of the Design Thinking Village, Techfest Vietnam

Always curious about the unknown.

Before participating in Techfest Vietnam – the nation's largest innovation and startup competition and event, tasked with supporting the "Innovation and Startup Ecosystem" (Project 844/QD-TTg) – Ms. Duong Tuong Nhi was the Founder and CEO of Happy Lifestyle Co., Ltd. This company specializes in providing courses and training on changing perceptions and attitudes, laying the foundation for sustainable businesses and happy lifestyles.

Ms. Nhi admitted that at the time, her knowledge of the field was zero. “Innovation, ecosystems… these were terms I heard a lot, but there was a huge gap between knowing and deeply understanding. Only when I started working on it did I realize I didn't understand anything,” Ms. Nhi shared.

The businesswoman said that, at the beginning, she had exchanged ideas and talked with other technology village leaders, and discussed with the leaders of the National Innovation Startup Ecosystem Support Project until 2025, but sometimes, even after the discussions, she still didn't understand anything.

However, it was precisely this lack of understanding that fueled her curiosity. The businesswoman spent time attending seminars, workshops, and events on entrepreneurship and innovation; conversing with leaders, village chiefs, experts, and others across the country.

“I always listened attentively to the insights and experiences shared by experts at events from beginning to end, absorbing every word they said. And the greatest opportunity came from the book ‘Rainforest,’ which chronicles the early days of Silicon Valley. I learned so much from this book, and thanks to it, I knew where to start to build a strong startup ecosystem, contributing to the country's embrace of Industry 4.0,” Ms. Nhi recalled.

But simply listening, learning, and reading isn't enough. She implemented and acted on what she learned as soon as possible to gain experience and learn from it. According to her, innovation, first and foremost, lies in the pioneering spirit, not being afraid to make mistakes, and if mistakes are made, trying again. Design thinking has five steps: understanding, defining, creating, prototyping, and testing, but it's not always necessary to go from 1 to 5. Sometimes, you can go to step 3 and then go back to the beginning to make adjustments.

The key to innovation

The Design Thinking Village was established with the goal of creating an environment that encourages members of the startup ecosystem, businesses, researchers, investors, etc., to find inspiration and connect with each other in the field of design thinking.

Starting a business and innovating means doing something completely new, something no one else has done. It's like venturing into a forest without a path; you have to find your own way so that others can follow and start their own businesses. If you're afraid of getting lost, you won't dare to do anything, and there will be no creativity left.

- Ms. Duong Tuong Nhi

According to the definition of design thinking, understanding human behavior is key to innovation. Design thinking is a process of achieving innovation by focusing on customer needs, with a human-centered approach.

She cited the example of the success of ride-hailing services compared to traditional taxis. Previously, before ride-hailing services existed, customers had to call a central dispatch center to book a ride, and they couldn't track the taxi's location... Furthermore, feedback was impossible during the service. However, ride-hailing companies not only improved on all of that but also integrated many other services and conveniences, such as food delivery and diverse payment methods…

"It can be said that understanding customers is what helps ride-hailing companies achieve success in the market," Ms. Nhi said.

Beyond simply understanding, successfully applying design thinking requires identifying ideas, creating innovative solutions that meet the vast needs of the market, experimenting, gathering feedback, and continuously adjusting to consistently deliver the most innovative products. This is more evident in technology products such as social media and storage applications. For example, YouTube offers free access to everyone, creating significant demand once users become accustomed to it, and then selling a YouTube Premium package for an ad-free experience.

"Developers have created demand for their customers through design thinking," Ms. Nhi said. This mindset can also be flexibly applied to innovation, creating better results in many activities beyond business.

Within the framework of the Design Thinking Village, Ms. Duong Tuong Nhi has built a Rainforest ecosystem to support and connect the Vietnamese startup and innovation community. However, to better understand this ecosystem, one needs to read the aforementioned book.

Therefore, in this project, individuals within the ecosystem are encouraged to read a portion, multiple portions, or the entire book and record themselves. These recordings are then compiled into multiple audiobooks. The project also offers various incentives for individual participation to motivate the spread of the message about rainforests.

"If nothing is done, few people will read. So, I create many activities to encourage and motivate them to pick up a book. They might only read one chapter, but that will stimulate their curiosity and desire to learn more about this ecosystem. Design thinking isn't just applied in business," Ms. Nhi shared.

To date, the Rainforest project has completed the audiobook version to make it more accessible to everyone. In addition, the Head of the Design Thinking Village has created many activities such as co-creation through team-building activities like the Rainforest Canvas project, talk shows, etc., within the framework of the Rainforest project to encourage participation.

To spread design thinking more widely, the Design Thinking Village has implemented many programs such as MegaCity Connect, regional caravan events, the Design Thinking Open Innovation competition, and the Rainforest Project...

The main focus in 2024 is the Vietnam Innovation Talent Competition, aiming to find pioneering leaders who can solve societal and local problems. Simultaneously, it seeks to attract diverse resources and participation from corporations, investors, government organizations, departments, and agencies across various sectors, thereby creating a successful, innovative, and sustainable ecosystem.

Creating a rainforest ecosystem.

Explaining the name of the rainforest ecosystem, Ms. Nhi said that in a natural forest ecosystem, sometimes new types of trees appear that no one knows about. But after experimentation and discovering their valuable properties, these trees are given names and gradually become popular.

The same applies to the economic ecosystem, startups, and innovation. A startup or innovative business will emerge somewhere. For these businesses to become well-known companies, they need a supportive ecosystem. This ecosystem includes investors, a network of experts, and others ready to help. In such a favorable environment, startups and innovative businesses can thrive.

The book "Rainforest" also cites examples of big names like Google and Facebook. If these startups weren't in Silicon Valley and weren't supported by the entire ecosystem, they might not have been known to anyone.

Within the Rainforest ecosystem, in its extensive connections with all components of the economy, startups, and innovation, such as large enterprises, experts, and investors, receive free sharing and dedicated support from the entire ecosystem. “There are renowned experts willing to dedicate their time to helping startups, helping those in need. That is the giving of the ecosystem,” Ms. Nhi shared.

Ms. Nhi and the Design Thinking Village will also have many support programs in training, information sharing, connecting investors with startups, financial support, etc., within their capabilities. To date, the Design Thinking Village has organized numerous training programs for businesses from leading experts, such as training on the legal responsibility of managers and internal dispute resolution shared by lawyer Dao Tien Phong, Managing Partner of Inninvestpush Global; and a seminar on intellectual property in global trade and its application to the Vietnamese context shared by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Dinh Diep Cong Thanh, Director of the Center for Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer…

In addition, the Village also organizes the Design Thinking Open Innovation Competition with both start-up and student categories, aiming to attract innovative ideas in entrepreneurship, business, commercialization of those ideas, and connecting intellectual resources and feasible solutions from experts to address societal problems.

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