VietNamNet Bridge - Vietnamese scientists not only need to have talent, but also luck to have their scientific ideas developed. If they are not lucky, their inventions are often never used or commercialized. 



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Dr Nguyen Ba Hai and his guiding glasses

The Prime Minister's recent support of a project to make guiding glasses for the blind after a dialogue with a young scientist was heartening news.

This was discussed at a meeting between the Prime Minister and young scientists held by the Ministry of Science and Technology several days ago in Hanoi. 

Dr. Nguyen Ba Hai, the author of the project on making guiding glasses for the blind, just needed three minutes to persuade the Prime Minister to agree to fund the project.

Hai said in local newspapers that he could not imagine the Prime Minister would make a decision so quickly.

However, many scientists said the scientist was lucky when having the opportunity to meet the Prime Minister. Meanwhile, many scientists do not have such opportunities and they never can develop their scientific ideas.

A local newspaper, when reporting the news, also said that this was a ‘favor’ to the scientist in an exclusive case, while it was not common policy for all scientists.

The guiding glasses were successfully made by Hai, a lecturer at the HCM City University of Technique Education, four years ago. Hai used his own money.

After successfully testing the glasses in early 2012, Hai began thinking of making the products on a large scale. He wrote about his inventions in many local newspapers, emphasizing that he made the glasses as a gift for the blind and he would not sell the inventions, though some investors contacted him for the copyright.

However, the glasses did not catch the attention from any businesses, agencies and organizations from the Science & Technology Department of HCM City, where Hai works, or the Ministry of Science and Technology (MST). 

A useful and humanitarian invention could not be developed until the Prime Minister heard of it.

Meanwhile, not many scientists have the opportunity to talk directly to the Prime Minister about their inventions. 

Pham Thi Tuyet Nhung from the National Satellite Center, belonging to the Academy of Science and Technology of Vietnam, noted that scientists lacked information about the preferential policies applied to them because of poor communications.

An analyst said that the problem was not poor communications, but MST’s indifference, commenting that the fate of scientific research works now do not depend on state’s policies, but on the game of chance.

TBKTSG