Da Nang has made great strides in the software industry globally over recent years. Apart from securing its firm berth in the home market, for the time being, it is common to see many ‘designed-in-Da Nang’ software apps make its presence in foreign countries around the world.

‘Essential Connector’ app helps essential workers plan their alternative travel to or from work during the overnight subway closure in New York

In early June, the Da Nang branch of the Axon Active Vietnam sold its ‘Essential Connector’ app to the New York-based Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), the U.S. with the aim of making the finding of late-night transportation a little easier.

In the context of coronavirus COVID-19 in the U.S., MTA, the largest subway system and the only one in the US to run 24/7, has shut down between 1:00am and 5:00am to disinfect the trains and address the growing population of homeless people in the system.

‘Essential Connector’, which is now available in Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store, helps essential workers find a bus using the MTA’s enhanced evening schedule, or if that’s not convenient, book a free taxi trip. The home screen shows a map of the city with bus stations. Tapping a station allows the user to see live bus and train departures, including the last train arrivals of the night and available buses nearby.

After a week of launching in New York, this convenient app attracted about 4,000 users, receiving many ‘5-star’ reviews on Apple and Google app markets.

The company is also a participant in the MTA’s ‘transit tech lab’ accelerator program that uses cellphone data, sensors, and cameras to find solutions to overcrowded subway platforms and ineffective bus lanes.

Mr Dang Ngoc Hai, the Director of the Da Nang branch of the Axon Active Vietnam, said, it took only 4 days to create ‘Essential Connector’. The MTA said Axon was selected because of its ability to create a new app from scratch “in a matter of days.”  This proves that Da Nang’s IT experts are fully capable of designing and producing software packages for supplies to the global market.

In the past, Da Nang, and Viet Nam at large, was the world’s cheapest outsourcing destinations, but in recent years, there has been a notable shift to designing and producing.

In early this year, developed by the namesake company in Da Nang, BotStar software using artificial intelligence (AI) was voted as ‘The best deal of the week’ on AppSumo, a renowned daily deals website for digitally distributed goods and online services. This remarkable stride by the BotStar company made itself become one of the very few Vietnamese startups to succeed on this exchange.

BotStar is a powerful and comprehensive chatbot builder that makes it easy to develop and refine an automated system to tackle queries and generate leads. You’ll get over 70 ready-to-use templates to get you started with conversation flows, and then you can quickly edit the conversation in the visual flow designer.

Targeting the international market since its establishment, the BotStar company now boasts a wide network of more than 250 customers, mainly from North America, Europe and Australia.

After one month since its debut on AppSumo, the BotStar company generated a 550,000 US $ turnover from the sales of more than 11,200 codes, doubling its initial target. 

Recent years have seen many IT businesses in Da Nang focus on consulting and designing software instead of merely outsourcing.

Established last year, the Hai Chau District-based DataHouse Asia Consulting JSC has built a network of partners in the U.S., Australia, Sweden, Norway and Belgium through its majors in consulting, and designing and producing apps.

Director of the municipal Department of Information and Communications of Nguyen Quang Thanh affirmed, thanks to outsourcing for Japanese, American and European markets, Da Nang's IT force has thrived in both quantity and quality, especially in terms of professional working habits.  This is also an important factor to attract large domestic and foreign IT investors, thereby bustling the city’s business environment and facilitating  for the local software industry to grow.

By PHONG LAN-Translated by A.T