Entrepreneurial university: not just entail scientific research
NTTU – It is shared by Dr. Tran Ai Cam – President of Nguyen Tat Thanh University at the workshop on “roles of the university’s leaders in building an entrepreneurial university” co-hosted by Nguyen Tat Thanh University, Ho Chi Minh City Department of Science and Technology, and Green Plus Joint Stock Corporation on May 12, 2023.
Establishing the entrepreneurial culture
With the orientation as a multi-disciplinary applied university, Nguyen Tat Thanh University has paid attention to develop the entrepreneurship among students since the first years of establishment. Since 2016, Nguyen Tat Thanh University has established NTT Incubation and Innovation Center (NIIC) to incubate and support the start-up projects of faculty members and students. The university has also included the subject of entrepreneurship into the curriculum of all 51 disciplines, of which 10 out of 28 majors chose Creative Thinking as its compulsory subject.
According to Dr. Tran Ai Cam – President of Nguyen Tat Thanh University, starting a business not only comes about theory but also from researching and forming a startup ecosystem. Therefore, we need to change the strategy as well as the vision, perception and thinking of leaders, lecturers, and students, then providing training courses on entrepreneurship and a team of mentors for the whole university to gradually set up a startup ecosystem.
Dr. Cam also stressed that besides of the entrepreneurship subject, in the near future, Nguyen Tat Thanh University will create a module of innovation and aim to develop an innovative training program, and at the same time pilot the subject of digital skills and creative thinking in teaching at the undergraduate programs first and then the graduate programs in the future. In addition, Nguyen Tat Thanh University continues to strengthen the relationship between the University and Enterprise in training, research activities, technology transfer, and product commercialization.
Dr. Tran Ai Cam shares at the event
After 24 years of establishment and development, the practice of entrepreneurship and innovation of Nguyen Tat Thanh University has been recognized more and more deeply. This can be clearly seen through many achievements in scientific research and entrepreneurship of lecturers and students of Nguyen Tat Thanh University. From 2018 up to now, students of Nguyen Tat Thanh University have 54 projects won the Innovation Startup Award, 9 projects achieved the Ministerial Scientific Research Student Award, 65 projects received the National Award for Scientific Research Students at the university-level and 11 projects won the Euréka Scientific Research Student Award. In which, some typical projects such as: the project “application of spirulina powder as shrimp food and environmental improvement” won the Champion of the National Startup Competition 2020; the projects: “application of black soldier fly in circular agriculture – Fly Bio”, the “SOFa product suite applied in circular agriculture system”, “application of orange peel after taking water in producing essential oils, scented waxes, soaps, cosmetics and organic fertilizers” won the second prizes of the 5th student startup ideas contest.
In addition, Nguyen Tat Thanh University also owns many scientific research projects at the State, Ministry and University levels and more than 2,700 publications in international journals under the ISI/SCOPUS system.
Hồng Quang
