Given the fact that many schools have opted for remote learning to protect the safety of teaching staff and pupils amid the COVID-19 crisis, students from the University of Science and Technology (DUT) under the University of Da Nang have successfully created the Fued app (The Future of Education) in an effort to support online teaching and learning activities in the city.

Members of the Ambition team

The highly practical app excellently won the Build On, Viet Nam 2021 organised by Amazon Web Services-AWS in an online form.

Launched in early 2021, the event, which was part of the ‘Build on, ASEAN 2021’ programme, was a competitive Hackathon that challenges the community to create technological initiatives and solutions to address challenges faced by participating sponsors.

With the thought of participating in the contest to improve knowledge, Nguyen Thai Minh (class 16TCLC2), Pham Xuan Sang (class 17TCLC1), Do Tuan Son (class 17DT3) and Hoang Tien Hai Dang (class 18H2CLC2), all studying at the DUT, registered for the contest and named their group Ambition.

“We took this name with the desire to express the ambitions and aspirations of the youth in bringing new solutions to solve problems facing the society" said Thai Minh.

Turning idea into reality

The whole group realized that virtual learning is increasingly becoming popular, especially amid the complicated developments of COVID-19 pandemic globally. Moreover, all of them are undergoing e-learning, so they understand disadvantages and limitations of current e-learning support applications. Therefore, the whole group decided to develop an app to support online teaching and learning activities in the future.

With their knowledge in the aspect of information technology and the active support from their mentor, the Ambition team have successfully created Fued - an online learning platform boasting many advantages in comparison with existing applications on the market. Included are features of facial recognition, voice control and after-school discussion.

According to Pham Xuan Sang, a member of the Ambition group, after logging for the app with teacher accounts, users can easily access school materials, exercises and average scores of classes. Most notably, they can upload learning materials, such as power point slides, videos, and PDF files, to the app, as well as organise warm-up activities before learning.

The highly accessible app helps teachers store notes, documents and it creates a repository of the stored documents so that teachers can access it anytime.

Besides, app users can communicate and interact with each other, and make personal plans.

“Fued is a platform to support teaching and learning activities and help teachers and students manage time and their own work" Xuan Sang said.

Learn how to work in a group

Thanks to Fued's outstanding features, Ambition team was crowned the winner of the Build On, Viet Nam 2021. Besides, the team won the contest's best presentation prize thanks to its coherent and easy-to-understand presentation.

According to Do Tuan Son, an Ambition team member, said that during the competition, the group's biggest difficulty was that everyone had to work online due to the city’s social distancing regulations.

“It is inevitable that disagreements arise during the process of working, but the whole team find a way to solve it. Afterwards, we understand more about each person's personality and working style. Since then, members find it easier to share and empathize with each other. The competition taught my group how to work as a team" said Tuan Son.

With the initial success at the ‘Build on Vietnam 2021’ Hackathon, the Ambition team will continue to develop some more features for Fued in the near future. Included will be time-and-attendance fraud detection, AI chatbot, and Vietnamese language support.

“Fued is an application created by Vietnamese people and intended for Vietnamese people. Therefore, we hope that, in the future, Fued will become a more useful app in supporting online teaching and learning activities, Thai Minh said.

Reporting by LAM PHUONG - Translating by M.D