Johan Alvin, First Secretary and Head of Trade Promotion, Economic and Political Affairs, Embassy of Sweden in Vietnam hosts the event held online from Hanoi. VNA/VNS Photo Tran Viet

"Innovations are not only important for economic growth and development, but key for tackling a whole range of challenges such as environmental sustainability," said Johan Alvin, First Secretary and Head of Trade Promotion, Economic and Political Affairs, Embassy of Sweden in Vietnam.

He was speaking at the ‘Innovation Pioneers Summit 2020 – Changing the way we collaborate’ co-organised by the Swedish Embassy and Vietnamese organisations of JunctionX and BKHolding.

The event aims to contribute to more sustainable and impactful innovation in the post-pandemic recovery, to build innovation capabilities through joint development and networking between top representatives of the innovation community.

"If there is one area of common interest for Sweden and Vietnam to collaborate and work more intensively with each other in the coming days, months and years, it is definitely innovation,” said Alvin.

On the occasion, representatives of Vietnamese creators exchanged and participated in the co-creation process with innovators from Sweden, South Korea and Singapore.

Speaking about how the Vietnamese tech community is fostering a start-up culture and ecosystem, Huong Nguyen, Head of Community at JunctionX Hanoi, said her organisation was working closely with mentors from start-ups, as well as experts from the non-profit community. 

Vu Huong, Community Program Manager of BK-Holdings, Hanoi University of Science and University (HUST), noted that the university is striving to boost the innovation process through developing an open innovation culture.

Huong said: "The challenges are seeing innovation as a strategic development plan to close the gap between universities and the market – from the top down with policies, to the bottom level with each individual as a creative agent of change."

"It requires a strong collaboration between individuals, departments, and between universities-businesses-government – and it is so important now to have an innovative “conductor” to connect all the dots – all good efforts of all universities to boost their innovation culture forward," she said.

The 2020 Global Innovation Index (GII) measures the ability of 131 countries to create a good climate for innovation. In particular it looks at seven factors: human capital and research, knowledge and technology output, infrastructure, market sophistication, business sophistication, creative outputs, and institutions.

Meanwhile, Vietnam shows steady signs of progress in GII, as the country is now ranked 42nd in the world, and ninth in Asia. Notably, Vietnam ranks first in innovation among the group of 29 lower-middle income economies. VNS

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