Vietnam Web Summit 2017, the largest annual web and internet festival in Viet Nam, opened on December 8 in Ha Noi.

Head of Mastercard Labs, Asia Pacific, MasterCard Tobias Puehse speaks at the Vietnam Web Summit 2017 on December 8 in Ha Noi. — Photo courtesy of VECOM

Organised by the Vietnam E-commerce Association (VECOM) and TopDev IT recruiter, the event aims to get the latest knowledge from speakers connected with well-known internet and tech companies, with diverse participants -- from developers, marketers and designers to businesspeople.

President of VECOM Nguyen Thanh Hung said that in 2017, the world has seen an explosion of a series of web technologies -- AI, Advanced Machine Learning, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality.

“Vietnam Web Summit 2017 is a great opportunity for businesses and developers to get updated with the latest web technologies and interact directly with leading industry experts, and is also a forum for businesses and developers to meet and discuss ways to expand cooperation and introduce their products to the community," Hung said.

At the event, experts presented over 100 in-depth topics on technical aspects (cloud, tech, trend) and e-commerce (payment, advertising, marketing), with new updates, trends and predictions about the internet industry in Viet Nam.

This year’s plenary session included representatives from eight companies -- AWS, Facebook, MasterCard and Zalo, as well as Google, Nielsen, Hope Ventures and Time Universal, updating knowledge and predictions relating to areas of web, e-commerce, payment and digital marketing. Many enterprises shared their success stories by leveraging web and internet technologies, such as effective e-commerce solutions, multiple retail channels and customer loyalty programmes.

Vietnam Web Summit 2017 also showcased a large number of demo products from enterprises, as well as the latest technology ideas from technology groups and tech startups. This year’s topics are mostly related to marketing, since with the development of new technology in recent years, marketing has also changed dramatically and new terms have been defined.

"One of the most effective marketing strategies for e-commerce businesses is to build an official website with great appeal and faith in the eyes of potential customers," Tran Duc Tam, head representative of Z.com Vietnam, a domain name provider in Viet Nam, said.

"Using a reliable domain name extension will help enterprises win the trust of their customers. For this reason, we encourage businesses to use the .com domain as this is the most standard domain name recognised internationally for online business operations," Tam added.

This year, Vietnam Web Summit 2017 attracted over 9,000 developers and more than 100 experts, speakers and representatives from global corporations such as Amazon Web Service (AWS), Facebook, Microsoft and Lazada, as well as Nielsen and MasterCard. — VNS