At just 19, Nguyen Nguyen Phong became one of the youngest lecturers at Hanoi Polytechnic University. Fifteen years later, he joined a secret research team racing to understand and neutralize US magnetic mines during the Vietnam War.

After leaving an $850-a-month accounting job, Vi Thi Thu Ha turned to nature-friendly farming in northern Vietnam. Her cooperative now supplies more than 110 Hanoi school kitchens and creates jobs for ethnic minority women.

An ethnic Thai farmer in Vietnam's Thanh Hoa Province sold his family's traditional stilt house for around $27,000 and invested more than $19,000 in breeding bamboo rats and civets, hoping to build a new livelihood in a remote border community.

In a once-isolated village in Son La province, a Muong entrepreneur and the local Thai community are bringing back an heirloom rice variety and turning cultural traditions into sustainable livelihoods.

A young farmer in central Vietnam has transformed low-lying, unproductive fields into an 8-hectare lotus-growing and processing operation generating more than $38,000 in annual revenue and creating dozens of local jobs.

Dressed as an elderly village woman, Tran Thi Huyen has won millions of social media views while promoting specialties from central Vietnam, helping her once-struggling business generate about VND150 million ($5,700) in monthly revenue.

Le Van Sau has built a 5.5ha VietGAP-certified durian orchard that can bring a profit of VND5 billion a year. After 45 years of working with his orchard, he has concluded that the key to successful farming is working alongside scientists.

After moving to Australia, Joy Nguyen found her calling in a demanding housekeeping job, spending hours standing and doing continuous manual labor to achieve a monthly income exceeding VND100 million.

A former tour guide in Ho Chi Minh City left the career she had dreamed of since childhood to return home and preserve her family's traditional rice paper craft, now passed down through three generations.

For Co Tu village elder A Lang Doi, preserving culture means more than performing on festival stages: it means ensuring children in his community can play the gongs, perform traditional dances and carry those traditions into the future.

A couple in central Vietnam is transforming mature loofahs into household goods for overseas markets while creating a new source of income for local farmers.

Dao Hoang Long, 22, spent around six weeks riding across Vietnam, reaching its four geographical extremes, seeing the northwest’s golden rice terraces and exploring the Truong Son route on a budget of about $540.

Ho Quang Tien, a young member of Vietnam's Bru Van Kieu ethnic community, is using TikTok and Facebook to bring traditional music, customs and village life to a new generation.

Living in a fishing village still quite unfamiliar to tourists, An Cuong in Quang Ngai is now attracting visitors thanks to the area’s beautiful beach and interesting interactions with fishermen.

Twice offered the opportunity to move to France under family sponsorship, Professor and Dr Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong chose to remain in Vietnam.

What began with a young teacher’s desire to preserve Co Tu dance has grown into a 40-member troupe spanning generations - and a way for villagers in central Vietnam to earn additional income from their heritage.

For 26 years, 93-year-old Khmer man Mai Huyen has poured his time, savings and faith into a 20-meter tower in southern Vietnam, filling it with thousands of Buddhist statues, many made by his own hands.

A farmer in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta has spent more than 30 years turning repeated setbacks into a fish business that now sells across the country and exports to the US and South Korea.

At 75, Nguyen Huu Nam still takes to the skies above Hanoi, where a video of him paragliding while recalling his wartime years has drawn hundreds of thousands of views online.