Unreasonable at Sea co-hosted a design thinking port event in Saigon last Sunday. We had a chance to meet with the US Consulate General for Vietnam to talk about doing business in Vietnam.
A couple of interesting facts: although the literacy rate is relative high, infrastructure and healthcare especially in rural areas is extremely poor. Learning institutions are very fragmented and often not accessible to interested students, so distance learning is an important topic.
During mutual introductions, it was great to see the energy and entrepreneurial spirit in the crowd. Young Vietnamese came to network, learn, and help the Unreasonable Startups brainstorm around local market consideration. We met some interesting expat Vietnamese: Chris runs a startup office that provides office space, networking and advice to startups. Martial Ganiere is in the process of opening a user interaction design firm here, including UI development.
Unfortunately we had a really hard time connecting to local SAP colleagues – although we did hear SAP does have a presence in this vibrant country.