A building located on a small alley on Khong Tu street in Thu Duc District in HCM City is the temporary headquarters of Realtime Robotics Inc (RtR). On the desks of every worker are components of drones, or unmanned flying objects.

The CEO, Luong Viet Quoc, PhD, says that discussions and arguments with his young engineers occur frequently as this is the nature of research and development (R&D). 

RtR was the first company to export HERA drones, 100 percent made in Vietnam, to the rest of the world, in late 2022.

In a T-shirt, jeans and old sandals, Quoc looks much younger than his age of 58. Returning from Silicon Valley, he became busy thinking of turning the "impossible into the possible" with Vietnamese intelligence.

Realtime Robotics is a drone manufacturer. The company’s products are exported to developed countries. You have your headquarters in the US. Why didn't you organize the production there?

The quality of Vietnamese intelligence is the thing that led to my decision to return to Vietnam to manufacture drones. Some people asked me if the cheap labor cost in Vietnam was a reason. However, if I just wanted to have low labor costs, I would have many other choices, and I would have set up a factory in other countries.

The key here is that the qualifications and talent of Vietnamese engineers are good enough to research and develop technological products.

However, isn't Vietnam a newcomer in technology development?

It is true that the starting point of Vietnam’s industry is very low. But it would be unreasonable to think developing supporting industries means increasing the localization ratio. Instead, it is necessary to have a longer-term view and seek achievements based on existing inventions to create a springboard.

For example, an iPhone sells in the market at $1,000. The cost price of the product is $400 at the highest, of which the assembly cost is $30 only. The highest value, $600, belongs to Apple, and this accounts for 60 percent of the value of the product.

Suppose that Vietnam can make 100 percent of the smartphone components, from the screen and the chips to the memory. It will be able to earn $400 (the maximum value reserved for the assembly), and this is the purpose of localization. However, our goal is not the $400, but the $600 that Apple pockets. This is the achievement from R&D and from intelligence.

Previously, South Korea was always behind Japan in TV products, but today, South Korea’s Samsung has beaten Japan’s Sharp and Toshiba thanks to its breakthroughs in TV screens. Vietnam should follow that way.

Is this why the HERA drone is selling at a higher price in the market?

Yes, it is. HERA is selling at $58,000, while the products of the same kind are priced at $38,000. The price gap comes from the R&D intelligence of Vietnamese engineers. The made-in-Vietnam drone has featured that other drones don’t have.

The value of HERA lies in the capability of the equipment. Physically, in order to lift a heavy object, the motor and propeller must be large to generate enough lift power. 

HERA can solve the problem. The drone model can fit a person’s backpack, but can carry equipment weighing up to 15 kilograms when flying, or seven times higher than other products of the same kind.

In terms of space, other drone models in the world only have enough space to mount one load or one camera, but HERA can carry four loads at the same time. HERA's capability of implementing missions is superior over other existing drones.

Our revenue from product sales since December 2022 has been $700,000. In addition to the US market, we are discussing with buyers in the UK on exporting HERA to NATO.

I heard that you had a hard childhood in a slum in HCM City. Is that true?

It was an unforgettable time. Our family had nine children and we lived on a floor area of just 10 square meters, which was situated on the Nhieu Loc – Thi Nghe canal, a "dead river" in both the literal and figurative sense.

My life changed as I realized the value of education. I got a Fulbright postgraduate scholarship, and then won a PhD scholarship in the US in the following years. With what I've experienced, I find life so wonderful. The unthinkable has become a reality for me. 

Trong Dat