In the last part of the online roundtable "Vietnam’s aspirations", Dr. Nguyen Van Dang from the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics and Professor Le Anh Vinh from the Vietnam Institute of Educational Sciences speak with VietNamNet about the role of science-technology and innovation in national development.

Building a digital economy: trend of the times

VietNamNet: If the documents of the 11th and 12th Party Congress, the concept of "digital economy" was not mentioned, in the documents submitted to the 13th Party Congress, "digital economy" was repeated many times. The development of the digital economy has been identified as one of the key tasks, as well as a strategic breakthrough in the 13th term. What do you think about this, Prof. Vinh?

Prof. Le Anh Vinh

Prof. Le Anh Vinh: I think this is the right direction. Vietnam has potential. We have good human resources, especially in science and technology. We can completely meet the development in the coming period if we focus on the development of the digital economy.

VietNamNet: All countries have policies to take advantage of the trend of the 4.0 industrial revolution. What platforms does Vietnam platforms need to take advantage of opportunities from this revolution?

Dr. Nguyen Van Dang: Building a digital economy is one of the solutions to make a breakthrough for the Vietnamese economy. This is a trend of the times.

In 2014, the Politburo issued a resolution on promoting the development of information technology. In 2016, the Government issued a resolution on tax incentives to promote information technology development and application. In 2017and 2018, we established the National e-Government Committee.

In 2019, the Politburo issued a policy to actively participate in the 4.0 Industrial Revolution, and then Resolution 52 set the target that by 2025 the digital economy will reach 20% of the country’s GDP.

That is, in terms of awareness and policy, we have been very proactive. In fact, a number of international research organizations have evaluated the conditions and potential for the future of the digital economy in Vietnam.

Secondly, as Professor Vinh said, our human resources in terms of technology are quite good and in fact the economy has made very clear movements. It is important to further promote the movement towards the digital economy in the coming time to take advantage of Vietnam's strengths, and especially the trends and development rules of modern society.

Science-technology and innovation breakthroughs

VietNamNet: According to Prof. Vinh, what role will science-technology and innovation play in realizing the goal of developing a prosperous and happy country?

Prof. Le Anh Vinh: I think science-technology and innovation will play a decisive role. We have been very active and prepared in response to scientific and technological innovation in recent years. Many policies have been put in place to promote this.

As for education, in the past three years, innovation and reform in universities, encouraging start-up among students has achieved very encouraging results. The number of enterprises originating from universities has doubled in the past two years. Students’ projects have achieved great success through startup fairs at the national level.

Many universities have added entrepreneurial innovation in their curriculum. This is a very good orientation.

VietNamNet: How do you see the current high-tech human resources in Vietnam?

Prof. Le Anh Vinh: Vietnamese students have good competencies in math and science subjects. When they are trained in science and technology schools, they have met the needs of employers well. Five years ago, we had no schools in the top ranking of universities in the world, but we recently had 4 schools in the top 1,000 and 11 schools in the ranking system of Asia.

I also see a shift in distance preparation, in particular general education. Under the general education program that has been implemented since 2020, technology and informatics have been added to the curricula for students beginning in the 3rd grade.

With that proactive preparation, in the next 5-10 years, we will have human resources to meet the development requirements of the country, especially as science-technology and innovation are defined as breakthroughs for economic development.

VietNamNet: So what are the challenges in building highly qualified human resources, Dr. Dang?

Dr. Nguyen Van Dang:

Dr. Nguyen Van Dang: I agree with Professor Vinh that in the field of human resource quality, science and technology human resources, we have tried to innovate. However, to further develop this force, the concept of innovation must be associated with the public sector.

That is how we manage and use these people so that they can promote creativity. Innovation in the public sector is a much more complex and difficult process than in science and technology.

The first obvious challenge is that we must have a flexible and adaptive administrative and state management system to the current context in order to utilize all resources in society.

How to innovate so that the government and the state can join hands with businesses, people and social organizations to realize Vietnam's aspirations for prosperity.

Institutionalizing policies

VietNamNet: From your experiences in developed countries, can you speak about solutions to promote and develop high-quality human resources in Vietnam?

Prof. Le Anh Vinh: I think that in order to promote and attract high quality human resources, there are three models.

First, develop local human resources like some European countries did. They invested heavily in education, infrastructure, and socio-economic development conditions in order to best develop local talent.

Another model is America. They have good working conditions and good growth opportunities and attract outstanding talent from all around the world.

A model that we can also learn from is Singapore: developing talent through training and fostering "lifelong learning".

I think we need to harmoniously combine these three models.

Dr. Nguyen Van Dang: I also agree with Professor Vinh that the environment is extremely important.

Referring to models of other countries and territories, such as Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan, I see what helps them attract the dedication of those with outstanding abilities is to give them opportunities and create a favorable working environment for capable people so that they feel they are valued, recognized, honored and rewarded if they bring changes to society.

From the perspective of research on public governance, for people with outstanding capacities having a sustainable foothold in the public governance system of the country in general, I highlight the institutional factor. That is, we institutionalize guidelines and policies into rules, principles, recruitment process, appointments and promotions...

Then, talented people, capable people will see their opportunities and will know how to contribute to society. Then, not only this generation but also the next generation, we will have a stable institutional process, which operates objectively and minimizes the intervention of human subjective and emotional factors.

VietNamNet

Vietnam and Aspirations

VietNamNet has organized an online roundtable with the theme "Vietnam Aspirations". 

Giving opportunities to talented people

The level of income is necessary but not a prerequisite. We have to give qualified people the chance to do what they can do so that they feel like they are contributing to the community.