Vietnamese students promote confidence and courage in new era of Industry 4.0
Equipping themselves with vitality and knowledge, Vietnamese students are performing their role as the owners of the country’s future. Many of their initiatives and scientific-technical projects have contributed to fostering socio-economic development and have benefited the community in many ways.
Truong Huu Phu (centre) and other Ucom project team members (Photo: baodanang.vn)
Connecting home cooks to serve customers with family meals
The Ucom project, which is literally translated as ‘mom’s meals’, is a mobile app which connects home cooks and customers. It was developed by Truong Huu Phu, 21, after he found that he missed home cooking when he was away from his hometown in Quang Nam province to study at the Da Nang university.
Phu joined his friends, including Nguyen Du, Nguyen Thanh Khiet, Nguyen Quang Huy and Hoang Anh Tuan, all of whom are students in Da Nang, to launch the project. In June 2018, their project was selected to receive sponsorship from the Song Han Incubator.
Six months later, the team members received training from experts and conducted field trips to seek customers and learn customers’ needs. Initially targeting students, after the field trips the team then expanded to employees, who don’t have enough time to prepare lunch.
To book home made meals, customers open the Ucom app, select a dish and delivery time. Home cooks then receive the bookings and find which one fits them the best before they accept it. The price for each meals varies from VND20,000 to VND35,000.
Ucom has connected nearly 30 home cooks in the city, helping them to follow their love for cooking while improving their income. Tran Thi hai Van, a home cook from Chinh Gian ward, Thanh Khe district, said that she was happy to cook delicious lunches which are appreciated by customers.
To date, Ucom has served more than 500 meals to customers. The project was recently introduced to more than 20 investors at the national innovation and start-up festival Techfest 2018 in Da Nang city to call for more investment, thus reaching more customers and expanding the project’s scale.
Providing smart management of apartment buildings
Sharing a dream to turn technology into an effective tool to benefit the community, Le Xuan Tung, Tran Hoang Linh and Dao Hoang Tien, three students from the Posts and Telecommunications Institute of Technology, worked together to develop CyHome, a smart app supporting the management of apartment buildings in 2016.
The project was quickly listed among the top of many technology competitions, including the Vietnam Silicon Valley (VSV) powered by the Ministry of Science and Technology, and Students’ Start-ups hosted by the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union.
However, the team members have tasted a number of failures on their way to turning CyHome into a feasible product. In the first period, the young men paid much attention to developing the apps and forgot to learn customers demand or advertise their product to the market. Consequently, CyHome received less attention from customers after its debut.
Learning from experience, they boosted their marketing campaigns to residents but failed to take into account the importance of collaboration from apartment building investors and management boards, which caused the project to fail again.
Without being discouraged, the team joined training courses on apartment building management, learnt experience from those working in the real estate sector, and exerted every effort to makeover the project.
Their efforts were finally rewarded. Built on the platform of cloud computing, CyHome, a resident-friendly apartment management system which was created to optimise management tasks and provide better value for residents. CyHome also gives managers and investors an overall view of their apartment in order to improve service quality and save costs.
CyHome has now been adopted in 12 major apartment blocks and is waiting for approval from 27 others in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Da Nang as well as other cities in Thailand and Cambodia.
As of May 2018, CyHome had reached more than 12,000 regular customers. 100% of the customers expressed their satisfaction with the product and two thirds of them agreed to introduce it to others.
Taking advantage of boats in boosting waterway tourism in Mekong Delta
A group of students from Van Lang University in Ho Chi Minh City made it to the finalists of the 2018 Eureka Scientific Research Awards, hosted by the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union of HCM City, with their project on boosting waterway tourism in the city and the Mekong Delta region.
Tran Thi Truc Xinh, a member of the project, said that the project aimed to take advantage of trading boats which are travelling between Ho Chi Minh City and the Southwest region, making them a means of transport for waterway tourists.
The project connects traders and customers through management software which is developed similar to Grab and Uber. Under the project, the trading boats are renovated to provide a homestay experience for tourists.
The fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) has become a popular phase on search tools on the internet as well as in daily life, imposing both challenges and opportunities for Vietnamese students in the integration process.
Vietnamese students have promoted their confidence and courage in the new era of Industry 4.0, facilitating national development while providing many benefits to the community./.
NDO
