After nearly five years of promoting incubation of hi-tech startups, the Da Nang Hi-tech Park's General Service Centre has incubated 7 out of the 9 projects selected from 15 registered projects. Five of them have been granted with graduation certificates.

Ms. Lynne Gadkowski (4th, right), Economic Counselor of the US Embassy in Viet Nam, working with representatives of the project on processing and recycling waste solar batteries Photo: M.Q

Under the incubation programme, the projects have initially achieved positive results, greatly contributing to promoting the city's innovative startup ecosystem.

'Processing and recycling waste solar batteries' is considered one of the most successful projects of the high-tech business incubation programme chaired by the General Service Centre.

On October 24, 2022, the project received US$200,000 in funding from the U.S.-ASEAN Smart Cities Partnership (USASCP) under the US Department of State to research and implement its first phase. It was classified as one of the top 6 startups in Asia receiving the highest level of funding.

At the time of receiving funding, the project had not yet graduated from the incubation programme but was highly appreciated for its green technology when combining an automatic production system with artificial intelligence (AI) to handle the processing and recycling of solar batteries.

Immediately after graduation in late 2022, the project focused on designing a waste solar battery recycling and processing model; deploying the manufacturing of equipment details and the installation of sample product lines, researching and creating applications for collecting industrial waste materials; completing the business model, brand identity, and financial and tax procedures when receiving foreign funds. To date, the project has basically completed a sample recycling line with 5 modules.

Mr. Do The Can, co-founder of the project, commented "The incubation programme of the Da Nang Hi-Tech Park’s General Service Center significantly supports starups in all aspects, from fostering business administration expertise to boosting connections with State agencies, guiding relevant policies, and finding contacts and connections in the ecosystem for startup businesses”.

One of the most notable supports is to connect startups with financial funds such as USASCP.

“We have established the 5RTech JSC with 25 personnel. In 2024, the project will continue to perfect the sample product and introduce improvements to each module in order to achieve the goal of commercialising the product in the future, while connecting with investors for the pilot implementation of the battery recycling projects on the 5RTech-developed tech platform. We also will continue to look for potential investors to build a factory with an expected scale of 2 hectares in the Da Nang High-Tech Park".

Meanwhile, the Nympha - Green Water Lily project is one of two projects participating in the incubation programme.

Project representatives have built an over 1ha material growing area in Hoa Vang District to promote the sustainable eco-tourism combined with using water lily products.

This model follows the principle of exploiting the space and ecological landscape of agricultural, forestry and aquaculture production areas to increase economic value and create new livelihoods for rural people. At the same time, it meets the entertainment and practical experience needs of tourists, urban residents and students in daytime.

Mr. Dang Thai Lam, a project representative, said that the project is developing a product growing and trading area, and working with the General Service Center to call for more investment capital, in a bid to expand growing areas and production machinery technology.

Aside from the two abovementioned projects, other projects under the high-tech startup incubation programme have achieved many impressive results.

In particular, a representative of the Xu Tien Microbiology project (graduated at the end of 2021) has built a 1,700m² production factory, and earned a monthly average of VND 400-500 million in revenue with a profit rate of 20%. The project has cooperated with two businesses based in Ca Mau and Tay Ninh provinces to trade two product lines of marine fish protein essence and PT-ORGANIC organic fertilizer.

Meanwhile, a representative of the Algaevi Algae project (graduated at the end of 2021) has established the ABR JSC and cooperated with a number of related units nationwide to carry out technology transfer and expand production scale.

Mr. Le Tuan Khanh, Director of the General Service Center, informed that in 2024, the unit will coordinate with the Management Board of the Da Nang Hi-Tech Park and Industrial Parks to build and complete regulations to support incubation activities with special preferential policies for projects participating in incubation programme on the basis of Decree No. 10/2024/ND-CP dated February 1, 2024 of the Government promulgating regulations on the Da Nang Hi-tech Park, and a number of activities related to hi-tech incubation.

Moreover, the center will pay attention to increasing connection and coordination between State agencies, business representative organizations, universities and experts in an effort to provide support in terms of legal procedures, specialised knowledge, facilities, and infrastructure for startups. The purpose is to promote technological development, and jointly exploit resources in the ecosystem to serve incubation, training, research and development activities in the Hi-tech Park.

Reporting by MAI QUE - Translating by M.DUNG