Vietnam's top 10 science and technology events in 2020

The 10 events were voted on by 60 science and technology journalists at 25 media agencies throughout the country.

PM approves national digital transformation program

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on June 3 signed Decision 749 approving the national digital transformation program by 2025 with a vision until 2030, which says Vietnam will strive to become a digital-based, stable and prosperous country by 2030.

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Under the program, Vietnam will pioneer in experimenting new technologies and models, reforming the government’s management and administrative activities and enterprises’ business activities, improving the people’s way of living and working, and developing a safe, humane and widespread digital environment.

The national digital transformation program targets dual goals – developing a digital government, digital economy and digital society, and creating Vietnam’s digital technology firms capable of reaching out to the world market.

Successful research on SARS-CoV-2

On February 7, 2020, the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology announced the successful culture and isolation of the SARS – CoV-2 virus in the laboratory. This success facilitated the rapid testing of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

With the achievement, Vietnam can test thousands of samples daily. This was the premise for research and development of test kits and vaccines in the future.

On March 5, 2020, the Ministry of Science and Technology held a press conference to announce the research results of real-time RT PCR test kits to detect SARS-CoV-2 virus. Vietnam became one of only a few countries successfully researching and developing this kind of kit.

The test kit was granted CE (certificate of conformity) and CFS (certificate of free sale) by the UK Department of Health and Social Care. The World Health Organisation (WHO) also granted a certificate on product quality for global circulation of the test kits.

Technology for flight control, retrieval of stratospheric airships

This is a project that researched technology for balloons to be used in the stratosphere integrated with information transceiver technology to monitor, give directions, rescue, and measure physical parameters in the atmosphere, implemented by a team led by Dr Pham Hong Quang from the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology.

The balloons in the stratosphere will carry air sensing devices, transmitting environmental sensors, giving warnings about disasters, and monitoring and navigating ships, indicating the locations for search and rescue.

Draft of Vietnamese national history completed

On November 12, the Ministry of Science and Technology held a ceremony to receive the final draft of the Vietnamese History project.

This was the result of a project on researching and compiling a set of books on Vietnamese history implemented by 300 scientists.

Viettel’s first 5G calls made on their own equipment

Viettel on January 17 successfully carried out the first 5G video call using its own gNodeB transceiver, becoming one of the few companies in the world capable of manufacturing 5G devices.

This marked Vietnam’s mastery of 5G technology. To date, only five companies in the world have successfully manufactured equipment for 5G, including Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei, Samsung and ZTE. Viettel of Vietnam will be the sixth equipment provider.

Bluezone app

The Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) on April 18 launched Bluezone, an app that tracks down Covid-19 infections in the community.

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The app was developed by the Authority of Information Technology Application. The product is the brainchild of many development teams at Vietnam’s digital technology firms, including Memozone, VNPT, MobiFone and BKAV.

This allows the identification and control of close contacts during the pandemic outbreak. As of mid-November 2020, over 23 million people had installed and used the app.

Hoan Kiem Lake embankment made with non-metallic reinforcement technology

On August 20, at The Huc Bridge on Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi, the Vietnam Science and Technology Joint Stock Company (Busadco) announced the completion of the 1,500 m long embankment of the lake, using non-metallic reinforcement technology for concrete components.

Vietnamese scientists participate in experiments published in Nature journal

Vietnam will pioneer in experimenting new technologies and models, reforming the government’s management and administrative activities and enterprises’ business activities, improving the people’s way of living and working, and developing a safe, humane and widespread digital environment.

Vietnamese scientists for the first time were co-authors of an international breakthrough research project published in Nature, a leading international academic journal.

This was a T2K international experiment. The scientific article ‘Constraint on Matter–antimatter Symmetry-violating Phase in Neutrino Oscillations’ was published in Nature on April 16.

The experiment was carried out in Japan with the international cooperation of 600 physicists and engineers, and over 60 research organizations from 12 countries. Vietnam and Japan were the only two Asian countries participating in the experiment.

Operation separates conjoined twins

On July 15, nearly 100 doctors and medical workers from leading hospitals in HCM City worked together to carry out an operation to separate twins Truc Nhi and Dieu Nhi, who were conjoined at the pelvis.

This was an extremely rare case in the world and the second most complicated surgery performed by the health sector in HCM City, after the surgery that was done 32 years ago with conjoined twins Viet and Duc.

Asian Innovation Award given to Vietnamese scientist

The Hitachi Global Foundation on October 30 granted the 2020 Asian Innovation Award to Associate Professor Dr Do Van Manh from the Institute of Environmental Technology under the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology.

Manh was honored for his research on biogas development and application using waste sludge from breweries and sugar mills to generate electricity and produce organic fertilizer.

Binh Minh - Trong Dat