Developing start-up projects is very tough as it can involve many challenges and difficulties, and even repeated failures.  However, many local young people in Da Nang are strongly determined to bring their start-up business ideas to fruition.  Their projects are usually inspired by their daily practical demands or their own hobbies.

A 3D plastic printing machine, created by students from the University of Science and Technology, on display at a local start-up event

‘Vut Bay’, a career guidance project, was one of the 8 projects participating in the first course to have been organised by the city’s Investment and Support Start-up Company (DNES) which concluded in July. 

Ms Huynh Chu Phuong, the Head of the project’s product research and development unit, said that she once worked for a local senior high school after her graduation from the city’s University of Education.  The young teacher realised that many Year 12 pupils feel confused about what career they would like to choose after leaving school.  This has inspired Phuong to become involved in developing this educational start-up project.  By offering actual visits to companies and factories in the city, ‘Vut Bay’ has helped stir the curiosity of senior high school pupils about their favourite careers before they make decisions about their future university choices. 

Ms Trinh Thi Hong from Lien Chieu District’s Hoa Minh Ward has a passion for producing cleaning fluid from biological products.   Ms Hong said she attended an international conference in the Philippines on developing poor urban communities in the Pacific region.  At the event, she showed great interest in the microbial organic products on display there.  Thanks to this, Ms Hong tried to produce dishwashing liquid from raw vegetables and withered flowers.  Most notably, her project for producing dishwashing products won first prize at the Social Innovation Camp within the framework of the Hatch! Fair 2016, Viet Nam’s largest start-up event which took place in Ho Chi Minh City on 7 and 8 October.

Nguyen Binh Tam, a fifth-year student at the city’s University of Science and Technology, is the developer of the Moc Nhien project for supplying organic vegetables to local consumers.  The project specialises in supplying organic vegetables, sourced from Hoa Vang District’s Hoa Nhon Commune, which meet the Viet Nam good agricultural practices (VietGap) standards. 

The Deputy Director of the Business Incubators Centre, Mr Ly Dinh Quan, highlighted the importance of developing products based on intellectual property, rather than on raw materials.  He remarked, “Under the city’s programme for developing Da Nang into a start-up city by 2020, the focus will be on deploying projects that can create numerous job opportunities for locals, but they might not require a lot of investment capital or waste natural resources”.  He also hoped that locally-developed start-up projects would have the opportunity to access the consumer markets at national, ASEAN and global levels.