The USAID Building University-Industry Learning and Development through Innovation and Technology (BUILD-IT) Alliance is modernizing technology and engineering higher education in Vietnamese universities and leveraging diverse government, industry, and academic partners to produce graduates with the skills that Vietnam's increasingly sophisticated manufacturing sector demands. Over the past year, USAID BUILD-IT's academic and industry partners provided mentoring and financial support to encourage faculty and students to develop the technical competencies and soft skills needed to participate in the final round of the Automation Competition and thrive as professional engineers.

On October 9, the USAID BUILD-IT Alliance held its second annual Automation Competition for over 60 university students from five Vietnamese universities. Each two-person team received the same problem statement and had two hours to sketch their strategy and apply software programming, physics calculations, and process mapping skills to design their own solution to the challenge. Student teams were judged for precision, speed, and reliability and two students from Da Nang University of Technology won first place.

So What? Piloted by USAID BUILD-IT and sustained by our partner universities, the Automation Competition continues to link industry needs with a university's capacity to transform students into work-ready graduates - ready to contribute to Vietnam's social and economic development.