Attending the Thematic Special were Mr. Mai Hung Dung, Standing Vice Chairman of Binh Duong People’s Committee; Mr. Nguyen Quoc Cuong, Director of Binh Duong Department of Science and Technology; Mr. Bui Long, Director of Center for Vietnam Science and Technology Internationalization Promotion ; Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Song, Deputy General Director of Vietnam Institute of Science, Technology and Innovation; Mr. Pham Hong Quat, Director of National Agency for Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialization Development (NATEC) and Mr. Le Hoai Quoc, Director of Saigon Hi-Tech Park; over 100 delegates as scientists, managers from Ministries, localities, universities, institutes as well as expert from the international organizations.
Overview of the Thematic special –section B “ Regional Innovation System and Technopolis’ under the Global Innovation Forum 2018
According to Mr Bui Quy Long ( VISTIP) there are many ways to know about “innovation meanings”. Renovation is full reform program including economic and other expects of life society initiated by Vietnam Communist Party during 1980’s “ Doi moi” policy has been officially implemented since the Congress VI of Vietnam Communist Party in 1986.
Innovation is the development, application of technological achievement, technical and management solution to enhance effectiveness of socio-economy development, productivity, quality, value added of product and goods.
Era of smartization/ Digitalization/ I 4.0, we are at the beginning of an era that has the profound and systemic changes in our society, made possible by convergence of the maturation of new technologies and the exponential growth in computational power, digitalization and digital interconnectedness. Today technological change happens like a tsunami. Small signs at the shore, and suddenly the wave sweeps in. Everything is interconnected and become “smart”. So if one things changes- or is changing constantly, as in the case of technology- the whole system needs to change to keep up.
This new era of” talentism” – where human imagination and innovation are the driving forces behind economies, as opposed to capital or natural resources.
Many traditional logics may be reversed: The young may be advantageous to the old, the less developed countries may be advantageous to the developed one and the small countries may be advantageous to the big one and winner is one who dares to think and do differently of do the same things better. Era of speed “ fast fish eats slow fish not big fish eats small fish”. In this new era, the line between what exists physically and what exists virtually will disappear. When the separation between the actual and the virtual is eliminated, the relationship between humans and technologies will undergo a remarkable shift. The emerging technologies such as: Biotechnology (GM); robot technology, 3D printing technology, new materials, Internet connection, anti gravity engine; li-fi (speed is hundreds times of wi-fi ); Artificial Intelligence (AI); Big data, block chain technology... make the world change like storms in most areas of social life.
Mr Bui Quy Long- Director of VISTIP with his presentation at the Thematic Special Section
According to Mr Bui Quy Long, many countries in Asia are urgently building a 4.0 economic model while others gone to the 5.0 one. Estonia, a Northern Europe country with 1.3 million people, is moving towards the 5.0-economy model widely admired in many parts of the world. Many countries are building a 4.0 parallel economy that is also updating and developing the future economic development strategy 5.0 as Estonia.
Estonia has an effective 5.0 economy, people can do online procedures and complete them within 5 minutes, all medical procedures, contracts, banking transactions, elections or even buying the train tickets that almost integrated with electronic citizenship identification numbers. Almost all public administrative procedures in Estonia do not use paper documents that are made online. Wifi coverage throughout the country while lawyers advise clients through online channels. Hence, businesses can easily apply for online company within 18 minutes from anywhere in the world. Estonia is also the first place to trial-use li-fi.
Estonia has towarded into the 5.0 stage that is a shock to many international experts. In fact, this country has started to focus on technology development since its separation from the periof of the Soviet Union in 1991, but has encountered many difficulties such as lacking of resources, finance and technology. However, the country has taken advantage of these weaknesses to turn them into strength. With the lack of a basis for technology development, the Estonian government was not burdened with great readiness and is willing to try every ways in order to innovate. They do not have much money to invest in infrastructure, so the development of the online registration system is indispensable and because they do not want to spend much money on travelling issues, people are willing to acess the online administration registration procedures.
From the key concepts and definition and case studies of Estonian innovation Mr Bui Quy Long said that: there is no universally accepted definition of a smart city. It means diffirent things to diffirent people. The conceptualism of smart city, there fore, varies from city to city and country to country, depending on the level of development, willingness to change and reform, resources and aspirations of the city residents. A smart city would have a different connotation in India than, say, Euroupe. Even in India, there is no one way of definding a smart city – By India.
A city to be smart when investments in human and social capital and traditional transport and moderm ICT communication infrastructure fuel sustainable economic growth and high quality of life, with a wise management of nature resources, through participatory governance- by EU said by Mr Bui Quy Long.
From the analysis of the aspects of innovation, start-ups eco- systems, characteristics of smart cities and era of smartization in Vietnam, Mr Bui Quy Long also offered the recommend that: The improvments of innovation- startup eco-system and smart cities in Binh Duong in particular and Vietnam in general must be taken into account the optimal problem in selecting technology to be sustainable and effective in the long term in order to avoid wasted Public procurement due to the changes of technology day by day and beyond the predictability capacity of government bodies, authorities and businesses.
The other experts from The Thematic Special Section also shared information about other contents such as: The region Innovation system and technopolis; the roles and importances of universities and Maker Space (the space for researcher and inventor) in order to improve the innovation and startups in Vietnam; the potential of the start-ups when they join to make the start up net work and build up the smart city mentioned above; Hi-tech Park of Ho Chi Minh City improved the regional innovation and start-ups at organizations. These are groundbreaking and practical contents, which help to examine the smart city more radically from the perspective of building and upgrading the innovation system, on the other hand it also quik-looked at the entities , the basic governances of the innovation system such as the real space for working, the start-ups and innovation eco-system, S&T enterprises.
Group photo of The Speakers at Thematic special section B