Ha loved coding when he was a mathematics majoring student at the Ha Long High School for the Gifted. 

Nguyen Song Ha

At that time, Ha developed a program with the Pascal language on how to play the piano. Programming, which turned his ideas into reality, excited him.

In 2005, after winning second prize in the national competitions for excellent students in informatics, Ha was admitted into the Hanoi University of Technology, a member school of Hanoi National University, without having to attend the entrance exam.

Path to Microsoft

After efforts to learn English and accumulate professional knowledge, Ha obtained a scholarship at Politecnico di Torino University in Turin, Italy for a master’s degree. Later, he went to Pennsylvania in the US to obtain a master’s degree in computer science (2011-2013).

After finishing studies, Ha decided to apply for the post of software engineer at Microsoft.

To be admitted to Microsoft, candidates had to go through five interview rounds.

One of the chief benefits of working at Microsoft was the opportunity to work with excellent colleagues.

Ha spent five years working for Microsoft as a software engineer on the Windows team.

Ha once represented a Windows team at UPF49 and UPF51, where specialists from all over the world came to co-develop the latest Bluetooth technology.

At one time, layoffs occurred.

“There were 10,000-12,000 engineers working for Windows and about 10 percent of them needed to be cut. 1,000 engineers lost their positions,” he said, adding that four out of 8 workers on his team were laid off.

His job was going smoothly when Ha realized that the post of software engineer at Microsoft could not satisfy his desire to make a contribution to the development of the community.

In late 2018, he decided to look for new opportunities. Ignoring offers with double the salary from four other leading technology firms, he decided to work for Code.org.

The technology education organization has more than 1 million teachers and 40 million students. The aim of the organization is to promote computer science to students in the US and all over the world.

This can help narrow the gap in educational opportunities between students in different socio-economic conditions.

The right decision

His job was going smoothly when Ha realized that the post of software engineer at Microsoft could not satisfy his desire to make a contribution to the development of the community.

After two years of working there, Ha believed that he had made the right decision. To help students learn programming and computer science at school, more teachers are needed.

Just within five years, Code.org’s training programs helped more than 100,000 general school teachers in the US become ready to teach computer science.

They were teachers of mathematics, history and arts who did not know much about computer science. However, they were ready after short term training.

Earlier this year, he joined STEAM for Vietnam, an organization with the mission of promoting activities related to STEAM education.

“There are still many problems in technology teaching and learning in Vietnam. If the studying and exams continue following the current approach, we will lag further behind developed countries,” he said.

Ha and other Vietnamese experts around the world have created a teaching program with the motto ‘Everyone can learn computer science’.

“At the free programming summer camp which had 5,000 students, we gave an award to an 11-year old girl, a sixth grader. She was a little shy but she surprised us with her creativity,” he said.

One boy programmed a game on a relay through cities in Vietnam. A turtle bearing Vietnamese flag started in Ha Long and overcame obstacles to give the flag to a pelican in Son Doong. Then the flag was transferred to a stork in Lao Cai. The stork overcame challenges and placed the flag on the top of Fansipan.

Ha and his co-workers are always thinking about how to bring products to children in remote areas.

“We try to remove all obstacles so that every student can access programming. All training courses are free, which is an important factor,” he said.

In addition, Ha and his co-workers have to consider other factors to allow students to have the best possible experience.

For example, they discussed whether to use Vietnamese or English for lessons. Using Vietnamese means they would have to spend time to change the programs, codes and materials. However, they finally chose Vietnamese, because this is the easiest way for students to take the first steps to learn to code.

Most of the students attending the first training course were from large cities. Ha hopes that more students from rural and remote areas will attend the next courses. 

Le Huyen

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