Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh urged the young to enhance their can-do spirit to promote entrepreneurship and innovation, create regional and world-class unicorns and contribute to making Viet Nam a start-up nation.

Chinh was speaking at Techfest Imprint, part of the three-day Vietnam Techfest 2022 themed “Open innovation ecosystem – the next big thing” coorganised by the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Binh Duong Province People’s Committee on Saturday in the southern province.

The Party and the Government aimed to accelerate the transformation of the growth model which was based on the application of science, technology and innovation to improve the productivity, quality and competitiveness of the economy, Chinh said.

The focus would be placed on strengthening national digital transformation; developing the digital economy on the basis of science, technology and innovation; and enhancing productivity, quality, efficiency and competitiveness of the economy.

Policies had been drawn out to create the most favourable conditions for start-ups and innovations with mechanisms, policies, legal framework and projects being important legal foundations for the start-up ecosystem to thrive in Viet Nam, he said.

Starting a business is difficult and starting an innovative business and creating value on the basis of exploiting wisdom, technology and sustainable business models was much more difficult, Chinh said.

He said he was pleased that Vietnamese people had been successful in building such business models and initially creating a foundation for developing and expanding international reach, adding that a number of Vietnamese start-ups now worth billions of US dollars were formed and developed both at home and abroad.

“Vietnamese wisdom, Vietnamese will, Vietnamese creativity have been asserting and reaching out to the world,” the PM stressed.

Viet Nam continued to maintain its ranking in the group of 45 leading countries in the Global Innovation Index (GII) of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and was rated by many international organisations to be in the top three most dynamic innovative start-up ecosystems in Southeast Asia.

WIPO’s most recent GII report showed that Viet Nam was one among countries that made the greatest progress in the past decade (moving up 20 places).

Although initial results were encouraging, there was a gap in the start-up and innovation ecosystem of Viet Nam compared to other countries due to a lower starting point, Chinh said.

To narrow the gap and quickly turn Viet Nam into a start-up nation, Chinh said that ministries, localities and organisations needed to work out solutions to promote the association of start-ups with science, technology, wisdom and unique characteristics of Viet Nam and Vietnamese people.

It was also necessary to combine the development of internal strength harmoniously and effectively with making the most of opportunities and external resources, promoting the tradition, culture, history and the spirit of solidarity, and self-reliance of Vietnamese people, he stressed.

Chinh pledged that the Government would create the most favourable conditions for the effective operation of the start-up and innovation system with a focus on policies to encourage the application of science and technology, and improve the capital, human resources, science and technology markets in line with the market mechanism and international practices.

Chinh hoped that Techfest would create a platform for management agencies, investors, scientists, start-up communities and localities to learn valuable experiences for promoting the start-up ecosystem.

He called on scientists, enterprises and investors to make more active contributions to Viet Nam’s start-up and innovation cause.

Especially, he urged the young to promote the can-do spirit to create regional and world-class unicorns.

Minister of Science and Technology Huynh Thanh Dat said that Techfest Vietnam 2022 aimed to search for solutions to sectors that were vulnerable to the pandemic’s impacts but had large potential including healthcare, education and energy; and solve problems related to human resources to meet the demand of the domestic and international markets.

At the event, awards were presented to the top 10 in the innovation and start-up talent search. Chinh also witnessed the signing ceremony of cooperation in developing the innovation and start-up ecosystem and supporting industrial digital transformation between Viet Nam and Singapore.

The event, which attracted around 8,000 visitors from 63 provinces and cities and 20 countries, closed on Sunday. — VNS