Dr. Tran Viet Hung, who is known as one of a few Vietnamese founders who succeeded in starting a business in Silicon Valley in the US, realized that successful people majoring in technology had encountered computers and coding at a very young age.

As a result, he wanted to help Vietnamese children learn about computers as soon as possible. He hoped that these youngsters will help Vietnam compete with other nations in the field of technology.

Luckily, he gained support from many overseas students’ and Vietnamese experts. Many of them are working for Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Code.org.

In 2020, during the outbreak of Covid-19, they established STEAM for Vietnam with the aim of providing STEAM education to Vietnamese students for free.

Dr. Tran Viet Hung.

“In the summer of 2019, I had a 13-year-old boy join an internship for software developer. We started the course by teaching him basic Computer Science for university students to see whether he could keep up with the lessons.

“Surprisingly, the boy finished the course after three months without any notable difficulties. After that, we taught him AI. He then could turn a toy car into an autonomous car. The result was stunning.

“We continued to interview him and taught some students from secondary schools. I realized that they all learned quickly and were very creative.

“I then had the answer for my question: Will kids who are used to technology be able to improve further in the future? This is why STEAM for Vietnam was born, focusing on children from 8 to 16 years old.

“We believe that students from 11 to 14 years old are at the golden age for us to perform this task. If these youngsters are taught Computer Logic and are able to apply what they have learned in real life, they can easily solve problems on a daily basis.

Dr. Hoang Phuong Nga.

“While taking part in the courses, we also invited speakers from other fields to talk with our students. One of our guests was Dr. Jeremy Frank – a well-known scientist who is currently working for NASA. It took us six weeks to hold this meeting for our kids.

“In the meeting, he talked about his missions in the outer space. Interacting with him, students had a chance to dream big dreams.

“We also invited experts from Harvard University, Google, and Microsoft to enhance our students’ skills other than coding.

“In my opinion, instead of concentrating on providing theories, practical skills and understanding of other fields are what we want to provide to our learners.”

Dr. Hoang Phuong Nga, a member of the STEAM educational system at  University of Boulder in Colorado in the US, said: “Computer Science and Education has always been my concern. As a result, when I found out about STEAM for Vietnam and its aims, I was extremely excited and was willing to join in the project.

Nguyen Song Ha.

“My mission is to design lessons for basic courses of Computer Logic, Scratch Coding and I am also responsible for the quality of our teaching.

“Normally, an offline coding class has around 10 to 15 students and it just opens in big cities. Consequently, there are not many young students who can approach this subject.

“I want to help children from every corner of Vietnam approach the best educational system from the best teachers. Moreover, the most important thing is to help student obtain Computer Logic, an essential tool to solve every issue in the 21st century.”

Mr. Nguyen Song Ha, engineer at Code.org, said: “I have always desired to gradually erase the gap between rich students and poor counterparts as, to me, everyone has their right to learn from the best educational system. With that goal in mind, I participated in non-profit STEAM for Vietnam organizations without any hesitation.

“I think that those who study technology in Vietnam still encounter inevitable difficulties. We will be left behind if our educational system does not have any plans to improve.

“We – engineering group – want to create an educational program with a slogan that everybody can learn Computer Science. In the first courses, we were planning to organize a class on a small scale to test our ideas. But the first lessons were more successful than we expected. After two semesters, we taught Scratch Coding, Python… for free to over 30000 children.

“With some positive comments from parents in Bac Giang, we were motivated to enhance our system and help more and more students join our courses.”

Ngo Minh Duc.

Mr. Ngo Minh Duc, who is an engineer at Google, shared his thoughts on the matter.

“Currently, teaching Computer Science is a concern that not only in developed nations but also in many technology companies. In America, former President Obama pioneered the program Computer Science for All in 2018 with the aim of educating American students at all levels about the subject.

“Education and assisting youngsters are my priorities. Without further ado, I signed up for a position in STEAM for Vietnam organization. Our first course was built based on a famous course at Harvard University, and then gradually edited so that our lessons are suitable for young students.

“However, our program aimed for a long-term plan. Therefore, we decided to teach Computer Science through online learning method in Vietnamese language and it is totally free.

“I hope that our non-profit organization can help children in Vietnam compete with other countries in the technology field.”

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