Search for startup ideas from students across the country

On the afternoon of September 4, Hanoi National University launched the creative startup competition RND to Startup 2026. The competition is for students over 16 years old or any research group nationwide with ideas, research, inventions, and technological solutions.

Associate Professor, Dr. Pham Bao Son, Deputy Director of Hanoi National University, said the competition will be held annually, starting from 2021. Recent editions have attracted up to 200 applications, showing that researchers and young people in general are increasingly interested in innovative startups. “However, a good research result does not necessarily become a good product and a good product does not necessarily find suitable users or markets. This is the bottleneck in bringing research results to the market,” Associate Professor Son said. He said this is also the gap that RND to Startup hopes to solve – helping research ideas connect with startup experts, businesses, investors and the necessary resources to form businesses.

Research groups can participate in the form of ideas or projects. Product idea board, early stage research, no finished product or actual customer file yet. Project boards are for groups that have research, testing results, sample products or have started doing business.

Contest fields include: AI and digital transformation; education and training; medicine and health care; agriculture and food; environment and sustainable development; industry, engineering, robotics; culture, creativity, society. In addition, the organizers also accept other fields if they have novelty, applicability and create positive impact.

Associate Professor. Dr. Truong Ngoc Kiem, Director of High Technology and Innovation Park, Head of the contest organizing committee, expressed his desire to connect contest ideas with business and local problems so that technological solutions can be immediately deployed in practice.

He said that after the competition, Hanoi National University continued to accompany project teams to complete test products, build business models and connect necessary resources for long-term development. This is also one of the activities to strengthen connections between schools, scientists, businesses, investors and start-up support organizations.

The contest is accepting applications from educational institutions across the country from now until September 30. The dossier includes a description of the idea and innovative startup project sent to the Innovative Startup Incubator of Hanoi National University.

During the first ten days of October, the committee selects the top 25 teams from each group. Next the teams were trained in building a business model, identifying customers and building a minimum viable product – the first version that can be sold on the market.

After this period, RND to Startup 2026 selects the top 20 teams to enter the semi-finals to continue perfecting the product and financial plan before entering the final in December. The council will select a team to win first prize in each table, in addition to 8 second, third, recommendation and voting prizes. Awards include bonuses, consulting packages, incubation and investment connections depending on the category.