An overview of Hue City. Thua Thien-Hue Province and Facebook have launched a comprehensive partnership programme to support the province in the digital transformation process. Photo courtesy Hue Portal

Vice chairman of the provincial people’s committee, Phan Thien Dinh, said the partnership aims to support the province in developing e-Government and becoming a ‘smart city’.

The programme, which kicked off in Hue City on October 5, will mark a milestone for Facebook's first-ever comprehensive partnership with a province in Vietnam.

The partnership between Facebook and the province includes a number of activities under all the pillars of the Facebook For Vietnam campaign, that involves training local small and medium-sized businesses and women entrepreneurs.

It also includes deploying Augmented Reality (AR) to promote the image of province, contributing to the development of local programmers and software developers while encouraging them to create and apply new technologies to serve the practical needs of their homeland.

Following the programme, Facebook will support equipping teachers and students with digital skills based on ‘We Think Digital’ programme.

It will help training Government Facebook page admins on how to enhance their capability to use Facebook as an effective and quick communications channel within their organisations and with the public.

The comprehensive partnership programme also aims to raise disaster response for local officials.

Nguyen Phuong Chi, Vietnam Public Policy Manager at Facebook, said: “We are very pleased to be a part of the effort on conveying the strategic vision outlined by Thua Thien Hue People's Committee, aiming at making Hue a Tier 1 city on the basis of promoting heritage values and innovation, taking information and communication technology as a breakthrough factor for development."

Dinh also said: “We are speeding up the process to help the province achieve this goal as soon as possible, including promoting the development of information technology and digital transformation. We would like to cooperate with Facebook in all pillars that the company is running in Vietnam, especially in terms of capacity building and innovation. We believe that this comprehensive partnership can address and focus on strategic issues of the province in accordance with the spirit of Resolution 54 and development goals of the two parties.”

In 2018, Facebook cooperated with the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, organising three training courses in three key cities (Ha Long, HCM City and Da Nang).

In 2019, the company teamed up with Da Nang for the first time to strengthen the digital capabilities of government agencies and support disaster management efforts. The successes and practical lessons from this comprehensive programme will be the premise for Facebook to replicate the model in other provinces, cities and governmental agencies in the future. VNS

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