Representatives complete procedures to kick off the innovation and creativity start-up festival for the Hồng (Red) River Delta 2023. — VNA/VNS Photo Văn Đạt

NAM ĐỊNH — The Innovation and Creativity Start-up Festival for the Hồng (Red) River Delta 2023 (TECHFEST 2023) began on Thursday in the northern province of Nam Định.

The opening ceremony was co-organised by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST), the Việt Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) and the Nam Định People’s Committee.

Speaking at the ceremony, the chairman of the Nam Định People's Committee, Phạm Đình Nghị, said that the festival had an important meaning and was a good opportunity to promote innovative ideas, creative innovation and look for solutions to improve labour productivity while minimising costs.

Minister of Science and Technology Huỳnh Thành Đạt said that Việt Nam's innovative start-up ecosystem has grown over the years.

It created favourable conditions for the formation and development of a new enterprise generation, which work based on advanced technologies and can quickly access domestic and foreign markets.

The innovative and creative start-up festival has been held annually since 2015 and has been a big activity, bringing the domestic and international innovative start-up communities close together.

Accompanying the national festival, many localities also organised their start-up festivals, attracting tens of thousands of attendees.

Over the years, the Red River Delta region has formed more than 1,000 start-up enterprises.

He said the Red River Delta had great potential for scientific research, technological development and innovation. The festival created good conditions for experts, investors, and management agencies to experience products and services from start-ups.

Through this, they can discuss practical solutions to design the ecosystem in the delta to become one of the strong attractions for domestic and international resources for start-ups and innovation.

The Red River Delta region has over 500 science and technology organisations, 291 research and development organisations, increased technological innovation speed and developed innovation startup ecosystem, according to the MoST’s statistics.

The Politburo’s Resolution 30-NQ/TW on the Red River Delta’s development until 2030, with a vision to 2045, defined that the delta would strive to become a centre of science, technology and innovation, a leading innovator in the country.

High-level forum

A high-level forum on the issue was organised on the same day as part of the festival.

During the forum, experts, scientists, and provincial leaders in the Red River Delta offered many solutions to support the building of a startup and innovation ecosystem.

The solutions include developing resources to promote innovation, supporting businesses in their start-ups and innovation, developing projects in potential industries, training activities to equip knowledge about entrepreneurship, giving production management skills, and researching and transferring scientific and technological results.

Trần Minh Hoan, director of the Nam Định Department of Science and Technology, said that localities in the region have recently supported, built and operated an innovation startup ecosystem, but not synchronously.

Some localities lack connectivity with each other.

To develop the innovative startup ecosystem in the delta, localities need to work together to deploy training programmes, knowledge training, and seminars for entrepreneurs of the startup ecosystem. — VNS