An overview of Huế City. Thừa Thiên-Huế Province and Facebook have launched a comprehensive partnership programme to support the province in the digital transformation process. Photo courtesy Huế Portal

THỪA THIÊN-HUẾ – The central province of Thừa Thiên Huế and Facebook have launched a comprehensive partnership programme to support the province in the digital transformation process, with the aim of turning Huế into a smart municipality in the near future.

Vice chairman of the provincial people’s committee, Phan Thiên Định, said the partnership aims to support the province in developing e-Government and becoming a ‘smart city’.

The programme, which kicked off in Huế City on October 5, will mark a milestone for Facebook's first-ever comprehensive partnership with a province in Việt Nam.

The partnership between Facebook and the province includes a number of activities under all the pillars of the Facebook For Việt Nam campaign, that involves training local small and medium-sized businesses and women entrepreneurs.

It also includes deploying Augmented Reality (AR) to promote the image of province, contributing to the development of local programmers and software developers while encouraging them to create and apply new technologies to serve the practical needs of their homeland.

Following the programme, Facebook will support equipping teachers and students with digital skills based on ‘We Think Digital’ programme.

It will help training Government Facebook page admins on how to enhance their capability to use Facebook as an effective and quick communications channel within their organisations and with the public.

The comprehensive partnership programme also aims to raise disaster response for local officials.

Nguyễn Phương Chi, Việt Nam Public Policy Manager at Facebook, said: “We are very pleased to be a part of the effort on conveying the strategic vision outlined by Thừa Thiên Huế People's Committee, aiming at making Huế a Tier 1 city on the basis of promoting heritage values and innovation, taking information and communication technology as a breakthrough factor for development."

Định also said: “We are speeding up the process to help the province achieve this goal as soon as possible, including promoting the development of information technology and digital transformation. We would like to cooperate with Facebook in all pillars that the company is running in Việt Nam, especially in terms of capacity building and innovation. We believe that this comprehensive partnership can address and focus on strategic issues of the province in accordance with the spirit of Resolution 54 and development goals of the two parties.”

In 2018, Facebook cooperated with the Việt Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, organising three training courses in three key cities (Hạ Long, HCM City and Đà Nẵng).

In 2019, the company teamed up with Đà Nẵng for the first time to strengthen the digital capabilities of government agencies and support disaster management efforts. The successes and practical lessons from this comprehensive programme will be the premise for Facebook to replicate the model in other provinces, cities and governmental agencies in the future. VNS