(VOVWORLD) - The Vietnam Innovation Challenge (VIC) 2023 seeks digital transformation solutions and products to enhance the capabilities of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to attract sustainable investment in Vietnam and facilitate domestic businesses’ participation in global value chains. The best innovative solution was named in each of 12 categories. In this week’s Business, we’ll introduce two of the top solutions, oneSME and BenKon.
 (Photo credit: NIC) |
Among the top 4 innovative solutions of VIC 2023 was oneSME – a digital transformation platform created by VNPT, representing the group of large corporations and businesses – which won the Digital Innovation Award.
 Nguyen Viet Bang, Deputy Director General of VNPT Technology (extreme right) at the award ceremony of the Vietnam Innovation Challenge 2023 (Photo: NIC)
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oneSME was the first B2B e-commerce platform in Vietnam. It provides comprehensive digital solutions for businesses, business households, and individuals, connecting the community and building a digital transformation service ecosystem for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME).
Nguyen Viet Bang, Deputy Director General of VNPT Technology, attributed the reason for participating in this competition to the possibility to widely deploy the product because what the company wants is to provide a platform on which all customers can get access as quickly as possible.
“We now have more than 250,000 customers out of a total of about 800,000 SMEs. It’s an e-commerce platform for digital transformation products where customers can access a large number of products from different suppliers, making it easier to choose the right product," said Bang.
 (Photo: ictvietnam.vn)
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The Make-in-VNPT oneSME combines modern technology platforms and advanced architectures such as cloud computing, small service architecture, big data, AI, machine learning, and VNPT's information security and safety technologies, said Bang.
He went on to say, “Everything began with a goal of creating a product based on a completely new idea. oneSME is a new architecture that not only gives product developers a venue to sell their products to businesses, but also a platform on which to develop products as quickly as possible.”
The platform is run on cloud computing which allows a very large number of users. Businesses and individuals can go there to develop products quickly and use the language of a unified platform,” Bang explained in details.
The products on oneSME are researched and designed by VNPT to suit the needs and sizes of each corporate customer.
As a result, it has been effectively supporting SMEs and individual business households in Vietnam to improve their labor productivity, increase their management efficiency, and optimize their resources.
The oneSME e-commerce platform helps businesses offer their products for sale, expand their customer base, and increase their revenue.
As of last July, oneSME had provided 40 products and services made by VNPT and integrated with SME partners. More than 150,000 SMEs have a oneSME account.
 Benkon SmartAir is designed by Vietnamese startup BenKon in regards of both software and hardware. (Photo credit: BenKon)
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"Energy Saving Solution - BenKon" from the BenKon Joint Stock Company won in the Project and Startup category. BenKon, who won a “Sustainable Innovation Award”, created a pioneering solution for managing and optimizing air conditioning systems.
Bui Tien Dung, the company’s co-founder, insisted that their platform helps manage an AC system’s energy consumption.
“Benkon saves 20 to 30% of the energy used by AC systems without replacing the old equipment. 70 to 80% of the electricity used by a fashion store, for example, is for air conditioning. Lights consume 10 to 15% and the rest is used by other electrical equipment. If you can optimize the air conditioning system, you’ll see an obvious savings in electricity used,” Dung said.
 Bui Tien Dung, BenKon's co-founder, at the award ceremony in Hanoi on September 08, 2023. (Photo credit: NIC) |
The Benkon solution is already being used by many retail chains and convenience stores to manage their AC.
Last January the company received seed funding worth 500,000 USD from VNPay and the ITI Fund. BenKon also participated in the Google for Startup acceleration program and was singled out by Google as an outstanding solution. Co-founder Dung said.
He expressed his hope that the startup community will continue to be supported to come up with better, more creative solutions.
“What a B2B solution provider like us wants and needs is for large corporations to consider startups an indispensable part of the innovation community, because startups have a strong sense of innovation. Once that connection occurs, it will accelerate innovation in Vietnam,” said Dung.
The solutions created by VNPT and BenKon, together with the two others in the top 4, will be honored next month at the Inauguration Ceremony of NIC’s facility at Hoa Lac Hi-tech Park and Vietnam International Innovation Exhibition 2023.
Launched last October and jointly organized by the Vietnam National Innovation Center (NIC) and Meta Corporation, Vietnam Innovation Challenge 2023 received 758 solutions from 10 countries and territories that demonstrated a sustainable problem-solving approach by large corporations, innovative SMEs, and startups.