DTU is stirring up the entrepreneurial spirit amongst its students with the introduction of new Career Orientation and Entrepreneurship programs, together with new startup contests university-wide, which have already resulted in the development of several interesting and useful products. DTU has also signed up for some startup contests organized by the Danang government, where DTU staff and students won prizes, including a first at the 2019 Techstars Startup Weekend, and one second and two third prizes at the “Creative Ideas and Start-up Fair”.
Nguyen Thi Hong Tham, second from left
The 2019 Techstars Startup Weekend Contest in Danang: First prize for “A Clear Head”
The 2019 Techstars Startup Weekend Contest in Danang was organized by the VN-UK Institute for Research and Executive Education. This challenging experimental startup training program lasted for 54 hours and attracted young people with a passion for entrepreneurship. The first seventy registrants were selected to compete and were allowed one minute each to present a total of 28 new ideas. The best 10 will be allocated to 10 teams comprising the 70 participants, who will be responsible for putting a product demo together, formulating a business plan and ultimately being the Founders of the business project.
Nguyen Thi Hong Tham and her teammates won with their project “A Clear Head - Helmet pads for hair and skin hygiene”, which they confidently developed by steady hard work and experience at several other competitions. Their premise was that, when traveling, motorbike helmets are not necessarily clean or hygienic, which can lead to skin diseases, such as psoriasis, head fungus and seborrheic dermatitis. The team therefore focused on developing a new helmet padding as a quick and efficient solution to protect healthy hair and skin from dust and dirt.
The helmet padding is designed with six pieces for one-time use with half-helmets, and composed of 70% natural viscose silk blended with 30% polyester fiber, for comfortable light, thin and soft usage. Furthermore, the padding is biodegradable within 15 to 30 days. The idea greatly impressed the judges and business representatives for its creativity, feasibility, social impact and its potential to eradicate skin diseases caused by motorbike helmets.
Hong Tham, an expert from the DTU Startup Center, presented the project and explained that, “I was lucky to take part in this contest. I learned many knew things while developing unique, creative ideas with my teammates. However, we didn’t expect to win, despite our close collaboration and hard work. I really admired the youthful enthusiasm and passion for entrepreneurship and now clearly understand my responsibility to help in developing a successful DTU startup education program, to meet the objective that the university Board of Provosts has set us, to make DTU a startup university by 2024.”
“The Connecting Creative Startup Ideas Fair”: one second and two third prizes
In parallel with the 2019 Techstars Startup Weekend, the Danang Youth Union ran a “Connecting Creative Startup Ideas Fair" on October 27 for local students. With self-confidence, creativity and enterprising spirit, DTU overwhelmed many strong opponents to take home one second and two third prizes in the “2019 Creative startup ideas in Danang” section, with one second prize for “The SMartbed” and third prizes for “An IoT application for breading silkworms - iSilkworm” and “A robotic restaurant waiter”
DTU students receiving a Second prize at “The Connecting Creative Startup Ideas Fair”
The DTU students demonstrated their dedication and desire to improve the lives of the Vietnamese people by caring about their sleep quality, improving silkworm breeding production capacity, and reducing restaurant workload as much as possible with electronic replacements.
The “SMartbed” project, by students Le Quang Tu, Nguyen Van Tan, and Phan Quoc Nam from Electrical Engineering and Luu Khanh Thao Nhi and Pham Minh Tuan from the American Degree Program, combines a variety of functionalities, including the automatic opening and folding of curtains according to the sleeping habits of the user; measuring, storing and reporting data on health indicators, such as blood pressure and heart rate; assessing sleep quality and giving advice; and, especially, alerting medical staff to abnormal and potentially fatal health conditions.
The project “An IoT application for silkworm breading - iSilkworm”, makes it easier to collect temperature, humidity and light measurements, automatically adjusts environmental parameters to provide optimum conditions during the growth of silkworms and continually transfers relevant data to a smartphone.
Another project was developed by Nguyen Anh Quoc Huy and Nguyen Anh Khai Hoan, from Electrical Engineering and Truong Hoang Trung and Tran Khanh Linh, from the International School. The “Robotic restaurant waiter” solves a great many of the difficulties encountered when hiring and managing restaurant staff.
The robot is able can converse in different languages, provides an electronic menu for the customer and updates them on meal choices and billing information, by scanning QR codes, recording telephone numbers from online purchasers, receiving payments and issuing invoices.
“When we took part in the ‘Connecting Creative Startup Ideas Fair’, we were quite relaxed,” said Le Quang Tu. “We were overjoyed when our team was announced unexpectedly as a second prize winner. We are now encouraged and resolved to continue tailoring our project to fit human requirements more closely. We want to thank DTU from the bottom of our hearts for already offering us startup education at the same time as we are studying normally and creating an environment where we can practice and promote the startup spirit among our fellow students.”
(Media Center)