Incubation centers located in universities around HCMC have never been this active before.
Each year, Nguyen Tat Thanh University Innovation Incubation Center (NIIC) hosts events to help 20-30 projects of its students and other startups. These are the chance for students to gain practical experience and train their entrepreneur spirit right when they are still at school.
The Institute of Innovation in HCMC University of Economics (UII) chooses a different operation model coming from Singapore Management University, where young innovators are properly trained in the fields of economics and administration by experienced UEH lecturers. UII also cooperates with businesses and a university from Germany to offer a high-quality training program about innovation administration for Vietnamese businesses, ranging from project development methods to business restructuring to promote innovation.
Another popular name among the startup community is Expara Vietnam, whose program ‘Building and Operating Spin-off Spin-out Companies’ has been quite successful. This program is especially designed for R&D projects, with financial support to scientific projects of up to hundreds of millions of US dollars, along with necessary expertise on product development and commercialization for a more precise business strategy.
Saigon Hi-tech Park Incubation Center (SHTP-IC) has long been a reliable place in the startup community. It has already supported 22 businesses to gain their Science-technology Enterprise (STE) certificates, accounting for 22 percent of the total STE in HCMC. It has also helped startups to submit 110 documents of intellectual property right protection registration. In addition, the center has a network of over 100 experts, 30 domestic and international partners to consult needy people on startup matters.
The most well-known program of SHTP-IC is “Open Innovation” – connecting startups to potential partners, major businesses to include innovative products into solutions for large enterprises like Saigon Co.op, Vingroup, Vinamilk, Nestlé.
SHTP-IC aims at providing the most professional support services to startups to minimize risks and maximize success chances for Vietnamese startups.
