A student introduces her team's innovation solution to visitors at the event. Photo courtesy of the ASU

HCM CITY Seven teams of 37 students demonstrated their industry-linked prototypes to an audience at the industry mentorship eProjects Innovation Showcase held in HCM City on Friday.

The showcase was co-hosted by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Building University-Industry Learning and Development through Innovation and Technology (BUILD-IT) Alliance and the Dow Vietnam STEM Program.

During the Engineering Projects (eProjects) program, students developed unique solutions to address challenges in water treatment, transportation, customer services, recycling process, model-based design, logistics process, and digital learning assessment.

Over the last semester, eProjects teams developed their prototypes through regular consultation with professional mentors. The mentors set out the vision for each project, shared their technical expertise, and met with students to build their prototypes. All teams have begun developing and testing their prototypes online on campus and at Dow's manufacturing facility as of October 28, 2022.

eProjects connects students and industry to find innovative solutions for real-world problems. Students can also develop project management, teamwork and communication skills while applying newly acquired knowledge, giving them the best workplace experience available. Through attentive coaching, they are better able to acquire the technical and soft skills required to be successful in advanced science and technology fields.

In the Innovation Showcase, students build solutions in partnership with their mentors to address real-world business and societal issues. They also produce project posters that share their own experiences with project conception, prototype design, and goal attainment.

At the event, students of Team 2 from the HCM City University of Technology won prizes for best poster from the evaluation of onsite participants, and the most effective teamwork; and students of Team 1 from the university won the best poster from the evaluation of the program's panel of judges.

Students from Cần Thơ University won the most effective solution prize and the most effective presentation.

For the sixth consecutive year, the Dow Vietnam STEM Program and the (BUILD-IT) Alliance have teamed up to offer undergraduate students throughout Việt Nam industry-related applied projects in innovation, entrepreneurship, and research.

Dow maintains its collaboration with BUILD-IT, which is implemented by Arizona State University, to encourage Vietnamese students to be innovative and enterprising while also achieving environmental goals to cut down on carbon emissions, eliminate plastic waste, and close the loop. VNS