Last weekend, on Sunday, October 1st, 2017, Ohmnilab's CEO and co-founder Thuc Vu was one of 4 judges at the Vietnam IoT Hackathon 2017, the largest startup competition ever in Vietnam. The event was organized by Viettel, the biggest Vietnamese mobile network company operated by the Ministry of Defense. The other three judges included Mr. Phùng Văn Cường - Vice General Director of Viettel Telecom, Mrs. Trương Lý Hoàng Phi - Director of the Center of Startup Support BSSC, and Mr. Ngô Vĩnh Quý - Director of Viettel Information Technology Center 3.
The purpose of the Vietnam IoT Hackathon is to nurture the startup spirit in the IoT area and to support the young generation in their startup journey. There were hundreds of applications but only 17 were selected to the pre-final round, then after 36 hours of hacking and 6 hours of presentation, only 7 teams were chosen to go to the final round and present before the judges within 10 minutes for each team. The 1st prize winner was iPG, a group from Lạc Hồng University, with their "Smart Panel" - a smart device that allows people to monitor and adjust their household electric appliances remotely via their own phone. All of the 7 contestants of the final round will be supported by Viettel to bring their project to life.
Our CEO Thuc Vu was very impressed with the variety of the applications. Most of them were very practical and applicable to Vietnam's market. A lot of projects in the finals were about agriculture, which is a very positive signal since Vietnam's economy is still largely dependent on agriculture, yet technology is not yet widespread within the field.
Images courtesy of Viettel