At the seminar, guests discussed the role of mentors and startups in solving Vietnam's innovation challenges. Accordingly, mentors and coaches play an extremely important role in the innovative startup ecosystem, always accompanying innovative startups in their development journey and also a factor that make the difference and the miraculous growth of innovative startups compared to other types of enterprises. During the past years, a community of innovative startup mentors has been formed and developed, with links between the local and the national and international, accompanying the local government to offer initiatives and consulting on ecosystem development.
Overview of the seminar
The seminar also summed up the first season and launched the second season of the "Global Mentoring Program for V-Startups" (GMPV). Since 2021, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have had the initiative to launch the "Global Mentoring Program for V-Startups" and have gathered 21 overseas Vietnamese intellectual associations to become mentors and companions, bringing Vietnamese startups to the world, accessing advanced technologies and global markets, at the same time, together with the domestic ecosystem, detecting problems and matters from localities and countries with great impact to solve by technological and innovative solutions.
Speaking at the seminar, Mr. Pham Dung Nam - Director of the National Startup Support Center said that in the context of the new normal with post-Covid-19 opportunities and challenges, the emergence of pioneering technology platforms, the strong development of innovative start-ups with governance platforms, connectivity solutions, pioneering technology applications; the above solutions are built and developed by the resources of Vietnamese businessmen and experts abroad, bringing contributions not only to the pandemic prevention and control but also to economic recovery and development. Linking this resource to the National Startup Ecosystem is more necessary than ever. In particular, the resources of experts and expatriates also open up a new direction for the ecosystem, namely directly supporting startups to reach out to the international market as well as to receive new technologies - playing a pivotal role in the development of the country. On that basis, the "Global Mentoring Program for V-Startups" was born.
New guests discuss at the seminar
The first season of the "Global Mentoring Program for V-Startups" has ended successfully. The program has received the registration of 27 mentors working and living in 11 countries and territories, over 1,600 startups accessing the program. Along with that, the startups registered to participate in this program are all startups that have launched products on the market, oriented to expand and develop in the international market. Some startups have participated in fundraising on Shark Tank and received investment, some have participated in many Innovative Technopreneur Contests such as Techfest, Hack4growth and won high rankings. Enterprises coming to the program mainly face problems in the stage of market expansion such as brand positioning, marketing strategy building, effective marketing methods, or ways to call for investment capital, financial management strategies in the current period, etc.
For startups that have officially entered the market, most have grown stronger: revenue has skyrocketed, have more deals and attractive new contracts. For startups that are in the testing phase: product quality has been significantly improved, knowledge of models and ways of corporate governance as well as human resources has been expanded, etc.
Reported by Yen Nhi- Translated by Thanh Tam