Vo Tu Duc and his journey from farmer to first Google WorkSpace expert in Southeast Asia

Hello Mr. Vo Tu Duc, on your personal account you introduce yourself as a "farmer", so how should we understand this title, sir?

– First of all, I must say that I am a real farmer. My childhood was spent working in the fields in a rural area of ​​Ha Tinh.

During my later work, I had the opportunity to study and experience in different countries. I observed and saw that there are many good qualities of Vietnamese farmers, including diligence and patience.

Furthermore, Vietnamese farmers are very eager to learn. From the good qualities of farmers, combined with my roots as a farmer, I introduced myself like that on my personal Facebook page.

In addition, in some aspects, “Farmer” is also the keyword that I pursue, and I am inspired by others, for example, at FPT, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Nam also founded a program on how farmers can write code (code is the most used coding action, code is also understood as the basic programming language). Mr. Nam himself was also inspired by the success of Infosys - one of the famous software companies in India and globally, with the keyword how everyone can code.

And in emerging economies like Vietnam, people working in fields like information technology bring better surplus values ​​anyway, so when there are more people writing code, the level of integration with the world as well as the ability to bring better surplus values. In short, I am also inspired by the keyword "Farmer", and that keyword to some extent also guides me on how the work I do can create impacts for people who do not have many skills at the beginning but I still create such impacts so that they can be closer to programming, closer to the values ​​of information technology, and have access to information technology at a cheaper price. That is also the direction I approach.

What was your first job and looking back, what were the major turning points in your career?

– Back to the original story, I remember the time when I first set up a Yahoo email address, it was 2002 when I was a second year university student. That was also the first time I had access to the internet, to technology. At that time, I was very confused about what the internet brought. After setting up an email, I had more access to technology and after graduating, my first job was also a technology startup.

I am curious about how technology products are made. At that time, I only participated in the business development role, but I was curious about how to create products. During that journey, I went through many different jobs but all were related to technology. There was a time when I worked on digital content, telecommunications technology, especially working on mobile applications very early (in 2008)... In the telecommunications part, I also participated a lot in the telecommunications equipment part, first selling software, selling devices with software and how to put that software into technology devices, then not only packaging stories about code but also packaging and integrating technology devices, during such a long journey, I accumulated a lot and had many observations about many companies doing technology startups that were invested by Google in 2008, 2009. After that, I went through many network companies. However, the most important turning point was the period when I had a comprehensive approach to Google's technologies. Especially in 2012-2015, when I approached Amazon Web Service, a company specializing in cloud computing, and then 3 years later, I started to approach Google Cloud and Google WorkSpace, and participated in foreign conferences... I saw the picture open up, saw a lot of things to learn and saw that there were many ways to receive help from others.

There are two keywords to learn, the first is “there are many things to learn”, the second is “getting a lot of help from foreign communities”. The software world is first of all, there are many people who spend time developing open source, then allowing everyone to use it for free. There are people who use a product, then they become experts in every corner of that product and they become people who spend time guiding those who come after.

Among the countless utilities of Google, besides Gmail, there is Apps Script, AppSheet is also an additional product of Google WorkSpace, and I participated in that product since the number of users worldwide for that product was only 50 people, but at present it has reached 3 million Apps in businesses. Through the process of participating in Google, I have an assessment and then delved into vertical products.

Once I got into that groove, things just kept going. At the end of last year (2023), Google recognized me as the first expert in Southeast Asia in the WorkSpace field, which was another turning point.

What led you to become Google's first Google WorkSpace expert in Southeast Asia?

– On the way, all the people I have met and learned from can be considered teachers, but to sum up, the Internet is a great teacher for me. But I have to say that the first barrier when I approached the Internet was language. Honestly, my English ability is not outstanding compared to today's young people. I also had to overcome that obstacle.

Thinking back to 2015, I read an average of 300 English pages a day, maintaining continuity every day, but not understanding every page, I had to overcome those difficulties. Talking a little more about technology, there is a cross-link between questions and problems, when learning about this problem, it will be related to other problems and not all of them I understand. The problem here is to read, learn and reference each other to find the connection and find my answer. In cases where I cannot find the answer, the last channel is to send a report to Google and at that time I have to sit and wait for some expert to see the problem I am having, post it and they will answer, if they do not answer then I have to accept it.

That is what I want to define as the greatest teacher is the Internet and how I have exploited the Internet. In addition to the story of how I have exploited its full potential, let's go back to the story of the patience of the farmer. There are times when I don't understand what I read, imagine that as a person who is not good at English, I have to overcome those obstacles myself.

There are many people who are good at technology in Vietnam, but in terms of the contribution index of open source code to the community, I personally think that there are still many points that need to be improved. Just imagine that if there was no support from foreign experts, I could not have achieved what I have today. Because I received that help since 2015 and then I tried Contribute back to the community. Google's recognition as an expert has two most important elements, the first is that you deeply understand a certain product, a certain technology of theirs. Understanding to the point that you are not the one who participated in building that product from the beginning but now you understand its entire architecture, understand what the product can do and even understand what it cannot do.

Even now that I have become a GDE, I will have meetings to provide input to the people who created the product, discussing what should be adjusted, what should be upgraded to make it better for users. To become a GDE, it is important to have a contribution back to the community, recognized through indicators on the forum, on the talks, how you describe Google's technologies so that users can easily understand...

On the contrary, after I have joined Google, I will be involved in projects, even legal steps to help me continue to participate in Google's complex steps.

Since you were honored by Google, has there been a second expert who is Vietnamese or from Southeast Asia?

– In Southeast Asia, there has not been a second person honored as an expert in the field of Google WorkSpace, and in the world, from the time I was honored in December 2023 until now, there have only been 2 more people.

In the expert directory, the total number of Google experts in the WorkSpace field is currently 30 people.

Has your life changed much since then?

– Personally, my life has not changed much since becoming a Google expert, because I have always tried to do my job in the most silent way. In fact, the biggest change is that when I joined the Google chain, I had to take more responsibility for the community, especially working with really good people all over the world.

In the past, people only interacted through the internet, they could answer or not answer, now we have directly participated in the system through groups, places where we can discuss or network, there are many opportunities opening up.

In your opinion, can a "low tech" person live peacefully in the 4.0 era?

– I still think that in the end, technology is just to solve a certain human problem. So the difference between low-tech and high-tech is that if someone knows how to use technology skillfully, they will know how to increase labor productivity.

When it comes to technology, there are many different layers: There are people who create (or construct) technology, there are people who popularize technology, and there are people who use that technology skillfully to serve their work. Each different context has produced different results. The story here is that the birth of AI (artificial intelligence) has changed many things. Recently, I read a report in Singapore when the parliament met, they said that now they use the budget to retrain the workforce over 40 years old to be able to use AI to adapt to the new context, new technology. When a country has been shaped like that, they obviously also have assessments and analyses of the impact.

It's not a matter of 'low tech' or 'high tech' anymore, it's about everyone using technology to some extent, not only in their work but also in their personal lives.

For example, suppose a family has children working abroad, if they want to connect with their children, they must use a certain technology proficiently, they cannot not know how to connect every day...

I think that everyone is influenced by technology and whoever uses technology will help that person increase their potential for understanding. But the question is, when someone increases their potential to the maximum, whether that person is happy or not is a completely different story. In Eastern philosophy, going back to the story of Taoism, it is often said how to be indifferent to the things around, in Buddhism it is also said how to balance with real life, to find peace and happiness in real life, in the present. In conclusion, everyone needs to equip themselves with the skills to adapt to changes in technology, but must know how to balance when there are too many technological devices.

And one question I get asked often is, how can we simplify the language of technology?

We should start by actually simplifying the language of technology. Let's say a Vietnamese farmer goes to Singapore to travel and enters a supermarket where all the products are listed in English. As long as he has a smartphone, which has Google language software, Google Lens, he can use that software to translate into Vietnamese to understand the information about the goods, the technology... For a company like Google, the mission of its engineers is to make the technology easy to use and so easy to use that it becomes... addictive.

We have just entered 2024, the year when AI is predicted to put millions of people out of work. What do you think about this?

– AI is changing lives, especially for those who previously had barriers to accessing technology, now AI is helping them overcome those barriers. This is the era of AI, all technologies are simplified even more. The question here is whether you are curious enough, patient enough to overcome the barriers or not, only whether you want to do it or not.

To talk about AI causing millions of people to become unemployed, there are recent statistics that before ChatGPT was born, the number of writing jobs increased steadily, after ChatGPT was born, the amount of work decreased by 20% within about 8 months. But in return, AI creates new opportunities. Before, people said that the job of creating video editing was low, but after ChatGPT was born and at this time there is symbiotic artificial intelligence, the amount of work increased by more than 20%. From these figures, it can be said that AI has created new jobs but also reduced the demand for old jobs. What I want to say is that AI has increased new jobs but reduced old jobs, so the problem here is how to adapt.

An expert in the field of romantic technology. I don’t use the word “but” because there seems to be no rule that technology cannot go hand in hand with romance. Can you share a little about your romance, especially in love?

– When talking about romance, people often think of someone who is associated with art. In fact, I am also very interested in music. Since my student days, I have been able to play some musical instruments, such as the piano, and since I was a child, I taught myself to play the flute… Back in 2007, 2008, I was in the process of getting to know my current wife. My girlfriend at that time was living far away in France, so calling her was very expensive, but sometimes I just called her to sing a few lines or play a song. My girlfriend in France also worked part-time and when we were on the subway, we called each other and sometimes just sang a song to her.

After getting married, I still try to maintain that romance until now. Whenever I gather with friends, I always have a guitar and sing.

Some people say that the definition of success is creating value for society and creating money and fame for yourself. Do you agree with this opinion? Do you consider yourself a successful person?

– Up to this point, I have found myself to be a hard-working person, curious about the things around me. It is that curiosity that has led me to experience many different topics, helping me have diverse experiences, enriching the things I want to learn.

No life is perfect, what helps you look past your flaws and see the light in your life?

– I read a lot and contemplated, and I found that, in order to reach the state where I see someone else's flaws through the lens of my own flaws, I must equip myself with skills first. What is that skill? I think it is the skill of always asking the question, what is most important to me? I want to emphasize that it is continuous, so that through such a long process, I will be able to break out the important things.

Thank you!

Source: https://danviet.vn/vo-tu-duc-va-hanh-trinh-tu-nong-dan-tro-thanh-chuyen-gia-google-workspace-dau-tien-o-dong-nam-a-20240624025116962.htm