RCE NETWORK

Last updated: October 30, 2024

RCE Southern Vietnam

Photo Credit: RCE Southern Vietnam

Rce details

Region:

ASIA-PACIFIC

Country:

Vietnam

Overview

Date of RCE acknowledgement:

January, 2011

Description of RCE and Geographic Region:

RCE Southern Vietnam is the unique centre of the RCE network which is located in Vietnam and functions as an NGO. It was acknowledged by the United Nations University in 2011 and hosted by International University, Vietnam National University in Ho Chi Minh City (IU).

RCE Southern Vietnam mainly focuses on promoting the implementation of the Education for 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations in the Southeast and the Mekong Delta regions of Vietnam.

Southeast Vietnam is the most highly urbanised and economically developed region in the country. It consists of Ho Chi Minh City and five provinces Dong Nai, Binh Duong, Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Binh Phuoc and Tay Ninh. While Ho Chi Minh city serves as a key center for finance, logistics, tourism, healthcare, and education, its adjacent provinces focus on high-tech industries and agriculture. However, due to booming development, the region is dealing with many emerging social and environmental issues.
Mekong Delta is South-western region of Vietnam. It consists of a central municipality – Can Tho and 12 provinces: Long An, Tien Giang, Ben Tre, Vinh Long, Tra Vinh, Soc Trang, Bac Lieu, Ca Mau, Kien Giang, An Giang, Dong Thap, Hau Giang, which adjacent with Cambodia to the north, with Gulf of Thailand to the southwest, and with South China Sea to the southeast. This prime location makes it the most important source of agriculture and aquaculture for the country. In addition, possessing the natural area of 39,734 sq km, it is a unique natural habitat, teeming with thousands of plant and animal species that cannot be found anywhere else. Nonetheless, the region also faces more climate change challenges such as sea level rise, floods, a growing risk of drought due to decreasing rainfall and abnormal weather patterns.

Goals and Objectives:

Vision:
To contribute towards the achievement of the goals of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) by integrating 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the United Nations into education and research activities in the South of Vietnam and the whole country.

Goals:
To create an open ecosystem within which individuals and stakeholders including higher education institutions, organisations, community associations, government agencies in the South of Vietnam, the country, the region and worldwide share information and experiences with the aim at bringing ESD into the curriculum and activities such as social sustainability contribution and social entrepreneurship as well as collaborating in research aligned with SDGs to contribute to positive social impacts for the region.

Objectives:

To sustainably solve social issues at local, regional, or global scales. RCE Southern Vietnam will collaborate with RCEs and stakeholders by bridging IU members with them to work on projects in terms of technology transfer or training. The project grants will be accessed from Vietnam national or provincial governments, NGOs, enterprises, or international organisations.
To achieve a sustainable future. RCE Southern Vietnam will lead advocacy in terms of consulting, funding, mentoring, giving awards and/or certifications, etc. for activities on ESD organised by Youth Union’s clubs at IU and the region.
To nurture a social entrepreneurial mindset for students at IU and the region. RCE Southern Vietnam will accelerate innovative competitions on ESD and social business creation for them as well as work with IU lecturers to integrate ESD and social business creation into their teaching curriculum to address potential challenges with the SDGs while maintaining profits of their business.
To raise awareness and responsibility of individuals and stakeholders on regional sustainable development. RCE Southern Vietnam will frequently update ESD information and resources from RCE network on its webpages, Facebook pages, circulating them via its RCE email, and organising workshops, etc.
To achieve progress on 17 SDGs for a more sustainable world. RCE Southern Vietnam will participate forums, webinars, or conferences with RCE Global network to work together for effective implementations and improvisations of ESD to adapt with VUCA world.

RCE Southern Vietnam team (Photo credit: RCE Southern Vietnam)

Organisation Hosting RCE Secretariat:

Since 2021, RCE Southern Vietnam has been centrally managed and coordinated by the Center for Innovation and Technology Transfer (CITT), which is an official Center of International University (IU).

Key Partners:

Name of organisation: Center for Business Incubation of Agricultural High Technology in Ho Chi Minh City (AHBI)

Role: To support individuals and enterprises for high tech agriculture development.

Contact name: Nguyen Hai An

Contact email: info@abi.com.vn

Name of organisation: Saigon Hi-Tech Business Incubator (SHBI)

Role: To promote and support startups in commercialising, calling for investment and scaling up in four fields, namely IT and Telecommunications; Engineering and Automation; Biotechnology; and New materials and Nanotechnology.

Contact name: Le Thanh Nguyen

Contact email: info@shtpic.org

Name of organisation: Schoolab Asia

Role: To promote education on innovation and entrepreneurship, sustainability, inclusion and diversity

Contact name: Nguyen Thi Minh Giang

Contact email: giang.nguyen@theschoolab.com

Activities

Current Activities:

2024:

Education for Sustainable Development - Empowering Youth into Sustainability Practices is a series of workshops promoting students into the sustainability realm with themes of Climate Action, Circular Economy, and Natural Cultural Heritage.
From Waste to Wonder: Embracing the Circular Economy is an annual program designed to promote the practices of circular economy at International University.
Sustainable Society Challenge 2024 is an annual program designed to inspire high school students to develop initiatives addressing social and environmental issues within their local communities.
Local Youth Conference (LCOY) Vietnam 2024: specifically aims to enhance youth engagement in achieving national climate objectives, facilitate youth dialogues, and offer recommendations to the Vietnamese negotiating delegation at COP 29.
Green Summer School Toward Sustainable City 2024: The multidisciplinary program aims to unleash the creativity and initiative of diverse students in transforming Can Gio district into a sustainable eco-urban area through the use of a game-based application
Training on Design Thinking: A one-day capacity building session for staff on applying Design Thinking to build a Green, Clean and Sustainable International University

2020 - 2022:

Organise STEM training courses and workshops for the community.
Ignite and nurture social entrepreneurial mindsets for the community, especially for IU students and staff via seminars, namely “Who will you be in the future?, “From Ideas to Startup”, “ Digital transformation”, etc.
Improve knowledge and skills about social business and entrepreneurship via training courses namely Active Citizens, Social Enterprise, Startup soft-skills, using toolkits of British Council.
Create opportunities for students to participate in sustainable development activities and look for potential projects that meet with at least one of 17 SDGs via contests, namely “IU Startup Demo Day 2021”, “Creative Ideas Contest 2021”(as co-organizer with ITP-VNU.HCMC), Sailing Home Contest 2021 - Sustainability (hosted by IU Union of Students), Hult Prize 2021, Social Business Creation 2021, etc.
Facilitate pre-incubator activities for projects that won the contests mentioned above via developing minimum viable products (MVPs), mentoring, connecting to other national and international innovation ecosystems for training, pitching, contests, etc.
Support IU RCE GreenLife Club, a club of IU students that belongs to RCE Southern Vietnam to open dialogs for students in the community to share their responsibilities to the social sustainable development via workshops and action plans.
Transfer saltwater intrusion monitoring devices based on IoT technology to farmers in the Mekong Delta.

Upcoming Activities:

Provide a “space” for students in the community to develop innovative ideas for the society via Innovation Camp 2021, IU Startup Demo Day 2022, Hult Prize 2021-2022, etc.
Emphasise the importance of SDGs and social entrepreneurship by localizing materials of “Social Business Creation” of HEC , Canada to seminars, training courses, and contests.
Spread spirits of social entrepreneurship and sustainable development to the community via updating relevant news to the media, websites and fanpages of IU, CITT, RCE Southern Vietnam, etc.
Promote the implementation of the SDGs through strengthening cooperation with localities in southern Vietnam and the whole country by transferring technology and training.
Strengthen community support and raise awareness about sustainable development through workshops, media campaigns, etc.

Achievements:

2024 (in progress)

2023:

RCE Award 2023 - Acknowledged Flagship Project: Education for Sustainable Development among Youth through Innovation Activities

2020 - 2022:

At the Grand Final of Social Business Creation edition 2021 in Canada, IU was ranked among the Top 5 Global Institutional Prize Finalists. Two projects of IU, namely Brain Analytics and NanoNeem, were in the top 5 of Innovative Social Business Concept Awards ($ 2000 CAD each) - Round 2. Especially, beating 265 teams from 80 institutions of 24 nations, NanoNeem won the Global First Prize ( $30 000 CAD in cash and $8 400 in services).
Tech Planter Demo Day in Vietnam 2021 (Global contest hosted by Leave a Nest-Japan): One project won SUN* Award.
Hult Prize 2021: One project was in the Finalist of Regional Semi-Final round.
Innovation in High-tech Agricultural Production in HCMC 2020 Contest (National contest): One project was ranked among TOP 10 Finalists.
Innovation in Artificial Intelligence Application in HCMC 2020 (National contest): One project won the consolation prize.
SV. STARTUP 2020 (National contest): One project won a consolation prize.
One IU student as one of two representatives for Vietnam was invited by the Italian Government to participate in “Youth4Climate: Driving Ambition” in Milan, Italy.
CITT was ranked at TOP 10 Innovation Award of HCMC - iStar 2020 (Group 4 for individuals and organizations supporting innovation activities in HCMC-Vietnam).