The missing piece in the startup ecosystem
Investing in university startups will increase the strength and quality of the nation's innovative startup ecosystem.
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The Techfest 2021 launch ceremony took place online. Source: TF
Recently, the Southern Department of Science and Technology in collaboration with the Seoul Startup Center (SSH) held an online seminar on two topics "Missing pieces in Vietnam's startup ecosystem: Innovation with economic groups" and "The Rise of Educational Technology (EdTech) During and After COVID-19".
Here, the delegates agreed that Vietnam's innovation startup ecosystem has developed rapidly in recent years; investors have great confidence in the potential of Vietnam's innovative startup ecosystem and expect this to be a potential market in Asia; and the innovative startup ecosystem has had enough important pieces, including large economic groups. These corporations play an important role and cover most of the stages of a startup - being a big customer and also an investor or a partner sharing knowledge and experience, etc., helping startups to enter the market and mature earlier.
However, according to Mr. Huynh Phuoc Nghia, Deputy Director of the Institute of Innovation, University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, at present, economic groups have not seen the role of an incubator in universities, although this is a very important component in the innovation startup ecosystem. The university is a place to train human resources, provide knowledge and the spirit of startup and creativity. At the same time, helping to connect with economic groups to commercialize the ideas of startups from the incubator. Mr. Nghia said that if economic groups invest in startups in universities, it will increase the strength and quality of the national innovation ecosystem.
In the topic "The emergence of educational technology during and after COVID-19", Ms. Laura Phan, founder of iZi Company, said that from 2020, when the COVD-19 pandemic broke out, in the world about 1.5 billion students have to study online. In Vietnam, there are nearly 24 million pupils, students have to stay at home for many months and this is an opportunity for many startups in the field of education.
However, Ms. Laura Phan said that for Vietnamese edtech, the current platform still focuses more on serving the teaching experience than the learning experience. The proof is that the community of creative teachers in Vietnam, consisting of more than 100,000 people, is still talking to each other and looking for international products to solve the problem of teaching and learning online. She added that, by solving the problem of learning experiences for students, iZi still grew well in the context of the pandemic.
In addition, many argue that the challenge for today's Edtech startups is that it is difficult to change the mindset of the public education system to receive innovations and creativity in teaching, learning and educational management. In addition, technical infrastructure (internet lines), application of modern technologies (artificial intelligence, virtual reality, etc.) are still limited.
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