Each year, students and pupils from across Da Nang who show their keen interest in conducting their scientific research activities creates a wide range of products featuring highly practical significance.

The making of toys from convenient raincoats by teachers from Duc Tri Kindergarten won a second prize at the 2015 Viet Nam Science and Technology Innovation Awards.

These talented youths have become more actively engaged in turning their theory they learn in their schools into prototypes for technological solutions to real-world problems.

In a bid to promote scientific research activities amongst the youths, universities and junior colleges, and relevant local agencies have provided necessary financial aids for them so that they can find it less challenging to pursue their research ambition, and bring their innovative ideas to fruitions.

It is a good idea to make the best use of creative ideas and startup projects developed by local youths to implement the smart city project, instead of appealing for ODA capital and cooperating with foreign partners.

The above statement was affirmed by Dr Duong Minh Quan, a lecturer from the Faculty of Electricity at the University Technology and Science, at an open dialogue between the city leaders and local young people in March with the aim of discussing ideas to develop a smart city.

Dr Quan asked for help from the city authorities to provide necessary support to bring such ideas to fruition.

For instance, a group of experienced scientific researchers from the university together spent the entire year of 2017 indulging themselves in enhancing the efficiency of solar panels.

If it is successful, this research project will help the city possess locally-developed technologies, instead of importing expensive devices and equipment from foreign countries worldwide.

In reality, in many cases, such foreign-made devices do not fit Vietnamese circumstances indeed. Also, if there are any technical problem facing these machines, it costs much time and expenses to contact their manufacturers for dealing with.

Such locally-developed solar panels can be widely installed onto the rooftop of residential houses and offices, and into traffic light systems.

In reply to Dr Quan’s recommendations, the city leaders highly appreciated the new energy solution developed by the university, and asked relevant local agencies to consider granting the funding from the city budget to this research project in an effort to promote the wide use of solar panels in life.

Each year, financial aids, worth between 1 million VND and 1.5 million VND each, from the budget of the Da Nang Union of the Science and Technology Associations goes to between 20 and 30 creative entries competing at the city-level scientific and technological creation competition for local students.

Meanwhile, the Duy Tan University also spends between 5% and 10% of its total annual revenue on promoting scientific research activities amongst its students and lecturers.

Over recent years, the Da Nang Science and Technology Development Fund has also focused on giving financial aid to scientific and technological projects.

Since the start of 2016, a total of 4.7 billion VND from the Fund went to 4 municipal-level and 11 government agency-level research works.

In 2016 alone, each of the 14 entries participating in a municipal-level scientific research contest for local pupils received financial aid of 3 million VND from the Fund. In addition, a total of 210 million VND from the Fund was granted to 3 local scientific and technological projects.

Of this, 100 million VND was given to a start-up project entitled ‘Minh Hong’ which specialises in producing cleaning fluid from biological products, whilst 40 million VND was for the creation of a welding inspection robot by students from the Duy Tan University.

The remainder went to a project for creating a dustbin cleaning machine which was successfully created by the Central Industrial Machinery and Equipment Production JSC (CIMEC) which is headquartered in Hoa Vang District.