Along with Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang is one of the three innovation startup centres in the country. To achieve the current results, Da Nang has been making the most of its geographical advantages and solid socio-economic foundation over the past decade, thereby creating momentum towards its new goals.

Many activities connecting international resources have been implemented by the city, contributing to promoting the development of Da Nang's innovative startup ecosystem. In the photo: The municipal Department of Science and Technology and the Viet Nam Innovation Network in Korea signed a cooperation agreement on developing an innovative startup ecosystem at the Da Nang Startup and Innovation Festival (SURF) 2023. Photo: V.H - M.Q

Inspiration for startups

According to the municipal Department of Science and Technology, the process of establishing and developing Da Nang's innovative startup ecosystem can be divided into 3 stages: inspiration and aspiration (2014-2015), shaping development (2016-2019) and converging fundamental resources (2020-2023).

Since 2014, a number of startup competitions have been organised in universities citywide, creating opportunities for students to approach startups right in the schools.

Included are the "100 Da Nang Entrepreneur Seeds" programme organised by the Support and Development Centre for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, the "Incubating creative ideas and startups about information technology" hosted by the Da Nang College of Information Technology (currently known as the Viet Nam-Korea Information Technology (IT) and Communications University under the University of Da Nang).

In addition, many startup events have been held across the city, aimed at encouraging the spirit of creativity and entrepreneurship, especially technology startups. They include seminars, training courses, and events sharing experiences and exchanging policies such as Barcamp and Startup Weekend.

However, Da Nang's startup activities at the first stage were mainly spontaneous and in small scale. Incubators are still in their infancy and lack many high-quality services for startups.

In Da Nang, there haven’t had typical successful startups, whilst the number of investment funds, co-working spaces, and startup training programmes at universities are still limited. However, a positive sign is that the start-up policy is quickly included in the action programme of the city leaders.

Da Nang identified the theme for 2014 as “the Year of Enterprise”. As a result, many mechanisms and policies to support businesses were issued and carried out with the purpose of developing businesses in both quantity and quality.

After nearly 2 years of implementation, the city's startup activities reached an important milestone when the Coordination Council for Startup Network (DSC) was established in October 2015, and the Da Nang Business Incubator (DNES) under the only public-private partnership model in the country was set up in late December 2015.

The birth of DSC brings together most elements in the startup ecosystem, including incubation programmes, incubators, universities, colleges, research institutes, businesses, business associations, investors , departments, and media agencies.

As the person who "gave birth" to the idea of the establishment of DNES and is currently the Chairman of the Board of Members of DNES, Dr. Vo Duy Khuong, former Standing Vice Chairman of the municipal People's Committee, shared that there has been no public-private partnership model like DNES in the country over the past 9 years which promotes the dynamism of businesses, and is managed and sponsored by the State.

Since its establishment, DNES has incubated about 100 projects (an annual average of 10-12 projects). DNES is in charge of investing in potential projects and incubating social projects. In addition, DNES contributes to training many startup lecturers at universities through the support of a startup organisation from Finland.

Da Nang achieved many positive results after 10 years of building an innovative startup ecosystem. In the photo: Startup booths at the Da Nang Startup and Innovation Festival (SURF) 2023. Photo: V.H - M.Q

Development and convergence of resources

The formation and development phase (2016-2019) witnessed the drastic participation of authorities at all levels, unions and businesses, thereby raising public awareness of entrepreneurship for the local socio-economic development.

The Da Nang startup ecosystem was basically formed with all the elements, meeting the needs of startup support and development.

Notably, the municipal government issued decisions on promoting the development of the startup ecosystem in the city according to each specific period.

Aside from issuing mechanisms and policies to promote startups, Da Nang laid an emphasis on incubation activities at startup support organisations because incubators are the "heart" of the startup ecosystem.

These organisations were born diversely under the models of the State, public-private and private partnerships such as DNES, Song Han Incubator, and Evergreen Labs.

The presence of incubators contributed to promoting startup support activities to develop and spread to neighbouring localities such as Thua Thien - Hue and Quang Nam provinces.

Also through startup support organidations, the Da Nang startup ecosystem has gradually formed. During the 2016-2019 period, more than 60 startup projects involving tourism, healthcare, education, food and information technology were incubated, and many of which called for investment capital.

In the stage of fundamental resource convergence (2020-2023), in addition to perfecting mechanisms and policies to promote innovative startups, Da Nang strengthened network connections with elements in the ecosystem through its participation in domestic and international events, exhibitions, and competitions on innovative startups.

Up to now, in Da Nang, there is a municipal-level Innovation Startup Support Centre, 2 centers under the management of universities, 10 incubators, 2 creative spaces, 10 co-working spaces, 10 startup clubs and centres at universities and colleges, and 5 startup investment funds and communities of creative startups.

Dr. Pham Hong Quat, Director of the Department of Science and Technology Enterprise and Market Development under the Ministry of Science and Technology, highly lauded Da Nang’s significant contributions to the development of the national creative startup ecosystem by developing specific policies and institutions of the region, thereby creating an increasingly favourable environment for scientific and technological activities.

He, however, stressed the need for the city to set the goal of upgrading the innovative startup ecosystem at national level to one at international level equivalent to some large creative startup ecosystems in Southeast Asia.

Reporting by M.QUE, V.HOANG - Translating by M.DUNG