The innovation and start-up festival Techfest wrapped up in Hanoi on November 15 with 29 investments worth more than 4.5 million USD committed for startups and 170 investment and business connections, according to Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Tran Van Tung.

Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Tran Van Tung said that Techfest 2017 saw 170 investment and business connections.

The two-day festival drew many participants, including 4,500 visitors, 250 startups and representatives from 50 domestic and foreign venture capital funds, Tung said, adding that it also introduced startup support services.

The festival also featured s​ix technological areas divided into seven villages, namely Agritech Village, Edtech Village, Medtech Village, Tourism and F&B Village, Frontier and Fintech Village, and Emerging Tech Village, along with Community Village.

Measures to bolster startups and innovation were discussed among managers, investors, successful startups and experts at the event. 

Notably, ten excellent startups were singled out at the final round of the Techfest startup competition. They received support from investors to continue their development.

A “virtual housekeeper” application, which helps users manage their houses, earned the Ami-Startup first prize. The team won a ticket to attend a startup forum in the US and other prizes like a three-month intensive training course worth 1,200 USD sponsored by KisStartup company and three-months consultancy from the Vietnam Mentor Initiative.

Techfest is one of the largest national annual events for stakeholders in Vietnam’s startup ecosystem. The event is endorsed by the Ministry of Science and Technology, other ministries, agencies and other startup ecosystem builders in Vietnam.

Vietnam is working towards becoming a start-up nation, with a target of having one million enterprises by 2020.-VNA