Ten student teams from six Vietnamese engineering and technology universities recently wrapped up the 2017 BUILD-IT Coding Competition, which was sponsored by USAID under its Building University-Industry Learning and Development Through Innovation and Technology (BUILD-IT) activity. As part of the competition, teams designed technological solutions to address emerging issues such as traffic control and reduction; e-government services; health care; and leveraging open data.

Prize winners included a team from Danang University of Technology who built a device that helps visually impaired people read documents in normal formats, and teams from Ho Chi Minh City University of Science who built a government assistance chatbot and real time traffic planning software. As part of its commitment to BUILD-IT, Amazon provided cloud computing technology that enabled the competition to take place.

So What? By applying their learning and using cutting edge technology, students were able to transform their ideas into prototypes of workable solutions to real-world problems. Through activities like this and reforms in higher education, USAID is helping universities in Vietnam produce graduates who can bring actual project experience to their future employers.