The team AntBuddy from Da Nang won first prize at the Da Nang Start-up Fair 2016 which took place in the city on 18 June.  Their project showcased cloud solutions for supporting customer services and managing customer information in small and very small-sized businesses.

The team has 5 members who all are young local computer programmers.  The name AntBuddy was chosen to reflect the efficiency of businesses, like the diligence of ants, as well as the joy and satisfaction between businesses and their customers, allowing them to become buddies.

A member of the AntBuddy team (first right) receiving the 1,000 USD prize

Although AntBuddy’s idea has been developed by many IT corporations, the team only focuses on small and very small-sized businesses in Viet Nam and other Southeast Asian countries. 

30-year-old Ha Thanh An, one of the team’s founders, remarked “There are numerous small and very small-sized businesses in Southeast Asia, but they cannot afford to buy this type of the software products programmed by reputable IT groups.  Instead, our project is being offered at a very reasonable price.”

Since the idea was developed and implemented, the team members have taken the initiative to introduce their prize-winning product to domestic start-up businesses for trial use, and then collected their opinions to perfect it.  In addition, they have already attended start-up conferences in other Southeast Asian countries to seek opportunities to meet with experienced mentors and investors.

In May, the team entered into agreements with 2 large businesses in Southeast Asia to sell the software infrastructure system of their project.  Then they have signed contracts with 3 domestic businesses since winning the Start-up Fair.

Thanks to their great efforts and highly feasible project, the Da Nang Business Incubators Centre and the Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre recently agreed to give the team financial help to bring their project to fruition.