In the Da Nang start-up business support plan for the 2016 - 2020 period, the education and training sector is considered to offer advantages for developing business start-up projects.  However, the number of start-up businesses involved in this sector is still very modest.

Vut Bay project’s participants experiencing cake-making

The SmartTutor project is a one example.  Being judged to be one of the top 5 in the 1^st stage of the city’s '100 Potential Businesspeople in Da Nang’ programme, this project received high appreciation from domestic experts and relevant agencies.

SmartTutor is an on-line tutoring site created to help students study foreign languages.  It is very useful for students who are too busy or too intimidated to seek help in the more usual ways.  Another innovative part of the project is the use of lecturers or advanced-level students, both undergraduates and graduates, who are teaching foreign languages.

However, after one year of operation, the project has been temporarily suspended due to a lack of investment capital.  In addition, the project’s developers are finding it hard to find enough professional teaching staff to satisfy the demand for online learning.

Another educational start-up project is Vut Bay, a career guidance project.  By offering actual visits to companies and factories in the city, the project has helped to evoke the curiosity of senior high school pupils about their favourite careers before they make decisions about their future university choices.

Although the idea of career guidance has been developed by many businesses worldwide, the project is the first of its kind in Da Nang.

Since its establishment in 2015, the Vut Bay team has already implemented 2 career guidance programmes, and both have drawn a great deal of attention from local senior high school pupils and their parents. 

However, the biggest problem facing the team is seeking suitable sponsors to fund the actual visits.

The Deputy Director of the Business Incubators Centre, Mr Ly Dinh Quan, affirmed “During future selection of potential business start-up projects for financial aid, my centre will issue more preferential policies to projects involved in education.”