Vietnam has a huge young population that is very active on internet, mobile and with highly national enthusiasm for technology, startups and entrepreneurship.
As a result, vietnamese startup ecosystem is rapidly growing in cities like Ho Chi Minh, Hanoi and Da Nang, aiming to become a modern industrialized state by 2020.
In order to achieve that, the national government has planned to develop a functioning national innovation system, fostering its startup ecosystem and supporting the growth of innovation via Startups and SME’s. The project has set the following targets for 2020:
Complete the main legal framework for a startup ecosystem; run an online portal for the National Innovative Startup Ecosystem; support about 800 startup projects and 200 startup enterprises, of which 50 will raise follow-on investment from private venture investors or will undergo mergers and acquisitions worth about 1 trillion VND (about 50 million USD).
By 2025, the project is expected to have supported 2,000 startup projects and 600 startup enterprises, of which 100 will have raised follow-on investment from private venture investors, or will have undergone mergers and acquisitions worth about 2 trillion VND.
One key actor to support these goals is the Innovation Partnership Program (IPP), that is an Official Development Assistance (ODA) program financed jointly by the Governments of Vietnam and Finland. IPP has been supporting the project draft “National Program to Support Innovative Startup Ecosystem in Vietnam by the year 2025” by working with policymakers.
One of the identified top priorities along with the national government is to get in place a solution to enhance partnering, online information sharing, matchmaking, communication and benchmarking to mention. All of this should be done in a global context reaching out international innovation and startup networks.
