The six most outstanding projects in the preliminary round of the 2020 National Startup Competition were promoted to the final round in the afternoon of December 26. One of them, the SMartbed project by DTU students, joined in the fierce battle with “heavyweight” teams and earned high appreciation for its creative and unique startup ideas.
Students representing the SMartbed group for the presentation section
The National Startup Competition was initiated in 2003 and has since been organized annually by the Dien Dan Doanh Nghiep newspaper under the auspices of the VCCI and in coordination with several ministries and local authorities nationwide. Through startup business plan creation and business research, young people can acquire experience and knowledge of business. More importantly, feasible projects in the contest will be given advice for improvement, be introduced to investors, and receive support in setting up an enterprise.
The teams in the final round of the 2020 National Startup Competition compete online. Each team is allotted 7 minutes for a presentation, 10 minutes for answering questions from the jury, and 5 minutes to answer critical questions from competing teams. The six most outstanding projects that entered the finals are:
? Commercial Coconut Fiber (CCF) Production JSC (University of Forestry),
? C-NATO stroke prevention candy (Thu Dau Mot University),
? SMartbed (DTU),
? platform for comprehensive connection between Video Maker community and users (Banking Academy, Foreign Trade University),
? Pando - construction materials from plastic waste (HCM City University of Technology & Education, Banking University HCMC),
? Spirulina algae applied to shrimp feed and to environmental improvement (Nguyen Tat Thanh University).
The DTU student group behind the creative ideas and the painstaking research for the SMartbed project consists of Le Thi Thu Ngan, Phan Trung Hieu, Le Nguyen Van Duong, Phan Van Thinh, and Nguyen Truong Nhat Tan. The idea behind SMartbed is to manufacture an automatic mosquito net to prevent viral hemorrhagic fevers and to detect sudden death and sleep apnea early. The product integrates many useful functions, such as:
? automatic lowering and storing of the mosquito net depending on whether the user is asleep or awake,
? measuring, evaluating, storing, and giving notice of health indicators (heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, movement frequency),
? evaluation of sleep quality and providing advice,
? warning of prolonged abnormal indices,
? warning in case of detection of sudden death or sleep apnea.
The operation principles of the SMartbed can be summarized as follows: Sensors are used to measure health indicators (heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, movement frequency…) which are sent to an embedded central processing computer. From there, the data are sent to a server for processing. Next, the processed data are sent to an app or web account where the user can monitor their sleep quality and assess their survival indicators. In parallel with this, the data are returned to the embedded computer which is connected to the sensors and the other equipment to execute the other functions (lowering and storing mosquito net, giving warning…).
DTU coach monitoring the SMartbed project presentation
“We’re very happy that our project made it to the 2020 National Startup Competition final round,” Phan Van Thinh of the SMartbed project group says. “During our presentation, I was rather nervous, but I still confidently presented our group’s product. I hope our SMartbed project will succeed the way we hope it will and that we’ll have a chance to get closer to investors.”
To wit, the SMartbed project took part in many contests and won many prizes, such as a second prize in the “Seeding your Idea” contest by VinTech and BSSC and a second prize in the 2019 Danang city “Creative Ideas & Startups” contest. On January 8, 2021, the teams of the six projects in the final round will attend the awards ceremony at the Fair of Investors and Project Exposition Booths and they will be nominated for the Entrepreneurship World Cup (EWC).
(Media Center)