The Da Nang People’s Committee on August 19 opened the Da Nang Innovation and Startup Festival (SURF 2026), bringing together domestic and international speakers, experts and investors to promote innovation and startup development.
SURF 2026 features more than 30 speakers, experts and investors from Vietnam and abroad, over 20 supporting organizations, more than 30 exhibition booths and approximately 3,000 registered participants.
According to Ho Quang Buu, Vice Chairman of the Da Nang City People’s Committee, the competitiveness of a modern city is measured not only by its physical infrastructure and financial resources, but also by its capacity to turn innovative ideas into commercially viable products and services.
He said that Da Nang is moving away from a traditional “management” approach toward a role of “facilitating and accompanying” businesses, with special policies designed to foster strategic sectors such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence and regulatory sandbox mechanisms.
Speaking at SURF 2026, Hoang Minh, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology, said that alongside expanding the scale of its innovation ecosystem, Da Nang should pay greater attention to quality and substantive effectiveness.
The success of an innovation ecosystem should not be measured solely by the number of startups, events or investment capital, he said. More importantly, it should be assessed by its ability to commercialize technologies, bring research results into production, develop technology companies and create competitive products for the market.
The SURF 2026 Innovation and Startup Competition also featured two separate categories for the first time, one for businesses and another for students, attracting 150 projects.
In the student category, a project developing augmented reality glasses to support people with hearing impairments won first prize.
