Delegates launched the Việt Nam digital map platform - Vmap and the Humanitarian Information System – iNhandao at a ceremony on Tuesday in Hà Nội. — VNS/Photo Thanh Hải

HÀ NỘI — The Việt Nam Digital Map Data Platform (Vmap) and the Humanitarian Information System (iNhandao) were launched at a ceremony on Tuesday in Hà Nội.

At the launching ceremony Deputy Prime Minister Vũ Đức Đam called on organisations and the donor community to support the development of the project on developing the Vietnamese Digital Knowledge system and iNhandao.

“Myself and those who have worked on the first phase of the Vietnamese knowledge system project are feeling glad now that the seeds of knowledge sharing, community connectivity and innovation encouragements that we have sowed a year ago have started germinating,” said Đam.

“Many young people from the Việt Nam Academy of Science and Technology, FPT Corporation, the Vietnam Post, and many other organisations and groups, have participated in the project and contributed their efforts voluntarily, for the benefits of the community," the Deputy PM said.

One of the most basic data platforms for each country is a map and an address data layer. Việt Nam needs to build its own online map to manage data source and meet the need of searching for information and addresses of Vietnamese users that existing platforms have not met yet.

Vmap was developed by the Việt Nam Post Corporation (VietnamPost) in collaboration with the Central Committee of Hồ Chí Minh Communist Youth Union and the Hà Nội National University.

To collect map data, more than 120,000 post office staffs and union members and youths across the country travelled to each street corner and village to collect information. The data will be integrated and posted on Việt Nam's digital map at https://map.itrithuc.vn/ and https://vmap.vn.

Vmap now has more than 23.4 million address data points across the country. In addition to basic features such as address search and directions, Vmap will display a separate map layer of all areas of life and display detailed addresses for each house number, whether in urban or rural, mountains and remote areas.

Vmap includes a background map database system like map layer on border, administration, traffic, rivers, co-ordinates information, support information of objects like landmarks, schools, hospitals, pharmacies, hotels and residential addresses but also provides the electronic humanitarian address maps, iNhandao, to support the implementation of humanitarian activities.

The iNhandao system, https://nhandao.itrithuc.vn, will display information about humanitarian addresses proposed by the user community across the country such as lonely elderly people, people with serious diseases, and people in areas affected by natural disasters.

iNhandao was developed by the Việt Nam Red Cross Society in collaboration with FPT Corporation to create an open access channel and to connect people in need of relief with donors.

The iNhandao system has developed humanitarian address data. Since its operation, the Red Cross societies at 63 provinces and cities have surveyed nearly 60,000 humanitarian addresses, of which 17,000 were updated to iNhandao system. It will contribute to improving the efficiency and quality of humanitarian assistance activities of the Vietnam Red Cross through digital map system and electronic applications.

Minister of Information and Communications Nguyễn Mạnh Hùng said iNhandao would help unite Vietnamese people to build a good and sustainable society.

Launched in January 2018, the Vietnamese Digital Knowledge system project aims to develop a data and knowledge platform relating to all social life fields. To date, the project has formed a platform system with functions and tools that allow the collection, processing and sharing of shared data for a number of fields.

“The project on developing Vietnamese Digital Knowledge system is a long-term and important programme of the Government that is built basing on latest technologies such as AI and BigData. With collaboration of big companies, groups and startups, the project’s results will be applied to create applications that connects and shares data and knowledge with community,” said Minister of Science and Technology Chu Ngọc Anh. — VNS