As part of the Da Nang Innovation Startup Festival - SURF 2024, the final round of the municipal-level Innovation Startup Contest took place at the University of Science and Technology - the University of Da Nang on Thursday.

Deputy Director of the Da Nang Department of Science and Technology Le Thi Thuc speaking at the final round of the Da Nang Innovation Startup Contest 2024.

In her opening speech at the final round, Deputy Director of the municipal Department of Science and Technology Le Thi Thuc said that the contest not only selected and developed talents but also honoured and created a breakthrough for innovative startup projects in the city.

She added that the contest’s organising board selected 10 quality projects involving trending fields such as artificial intelligence (AI), Block chain, Virtual reality technology, and automation in the final round. Many participating projects came from junior and senior high school pupils, and university students citywide, showing the strong spread of the entrepreneurial spirit to the elements in the ecosystem.

Representative of CWAssistant project - AI assistant for specialised tasks presenting at the final round of the contest.

Deputy Director Thuc pledged that leaders of the Department of Science and Technology will continue to support, accompany and create the most favourable conditions for all startup projects in the city to , aiming to build Da Nang into a hub for innovation startups with the core being innovative startup projects.

After the preliminary rounds, top 10 excellent projects and startups that entered the final round joined the training programme, implemented by the Da Nang Business Incubator (DNES). They are CWAssistant - AI assistant for specialised tasks; BINKS - Vegetable ink; MetaDAP - Meta Digital Asset Platform; ElevaBot - Robot for cleaning stairs in public places; and TripIn - AI&AR-based app for tourism promotion and dissemination of histories and culture.

Reporting by V.HOANG, C.THANG - Translating by M.DUNG