Fulbright University Vietnam’s mission is to serve our society by inspiring new generations of leaders and ambitious thinkers. But we do not walk this path alone. We are fortunate to have the support of various donors and friends, among them TPBank, the first bank to have a diverse and outstanding digital banking ecosystem in Vietnam. Since the initial scholarship announcement in May 2021, TPBank STEM scholarships have been awarded to students with academic excellence to realize their highly viable community-minded research projects.
Beginning with a core of interdisciplinary courses, Fulbright students then explore their area of interest and ultimately choose a single or double major. Out of eleven majors offered at Fulbright, three of which are STEM disciplines including Engineering, Computer Science, and Integrated Science.
On top of providing a specialized major base, STEM disciplines empower students to apply knowledge to solve real-world problems. Based on research to discover scientific findings, students were encouraged to lead the change starting right in their communities, while gradually paving the way for viable changes for the betterment of Vietnamese society.
Mr. Khuc Van Hoa, Deputy General Director of TPBank shared: “TPBank recognizes this highly regarded educational model as well as the criteria for selecting students at Fulbright University Vietnam. Given our position as the leading digital bank in Vietnam, the choice of investing in students amongst the information technology sector is one of TPBank’s long-term strategies in human resource development.”
This year, five (05) students were awarded TPBank STEM scholarships after rigorous rounds of applications and interviews with the expert panel. Each recipient will receive $2,000 to carry out their scientific projects. These grants do not have any effect on existing financial aid packages.
Nguyễn Phúc An (Class of 2023)
Phúc An is chosen for the research project on optimizing insomnia medications. Despite the wide variety of common treatments available, the side effects and risks for chronic insomnia patients remain an unresolved challenge, which calls for a coalition of scientists from different areas of expertise. Yet, some herbs and spices, although rooted in folklore, are believed to be an excellent alternative cure. As an Integrated Sciences student, Phúc An will take advantage of computers, specifically computational tools, to determine the binding energy between many active ingredients in Vietnamese herbal medicine and human protein which influences sleep quality.
Lê Hoàng Phúc (Class of 2023)
Currently a senior in Computer Science at Fulbright, Hoàng Phúc specializes in Artificial Intelligence (AI). Materializing his unyielding passion for AI and its impact on wildlife conservation, Hoàng Phúc’s AI mobile application VNTurtle applies computer vision to identify 26 turtle species in Vietnam that are in great danger of extinction due to illegal hunting and trade. Soon to be fully developed, the application is to contribute significantly to the conservation of freshwater turtles and tortoises in Vietnam and increase community awareness of such a meaningful cause.
Huỳnh Tâm Minh Hiếu (Class of 2023)
Despite being only a junior, Minh Hiếu has been involved in several groups and individual research projects while strongly believes “Knowledge is only potential power. It becomes power only when, and if, it is applicable to better the community.”
While machine learning has demonstrated significantly high performance on learning Lewis acid – Lewis base bond with molecular descriptors, the analytical control of Lewis adducts’ optoelectronic properties with molecular design descriptors remains an ongoing challenge. Minh Hiếu will narrow down the investigation scope for higher quality analysis, concentrating on the performance of Lewis bases in the shifts of adducts’ properties calculated by Ab initio methodology.
Nguyễn Hoàng Nam Anh (Class of 2023)
Setting her heart on Vietnamese cultural identity, Nam Anh wishes to take part in researching and developing tools for Digital Humanities in Ho Chi Minh City. Having obtained a solid academic Computer Science background at Fulbright and participated in several software development and machine learning research projects, Nam Anh will build software that can be regarded as a citizen-owned digital storing solution and a ‘time machine’ for heritages. Users will be able to upload multimedia historical data including but not limited to documents, genealogy, manuscripts, photographs, videos, and audios. In addition, the system will use Computer Vision to ‘recreate’ the national heritage of the 19th century based on time, geography, and recorded information provided by the National Archives Center II and people’s archival storage. When put into use, the project is expected to enrich the national historical database and promote multi-dimensional perspectives on the diverse Vietnamese cultural heritage to the youth as well as foreigners.
Nguyễn Hà Linh Tú (Class of 2024)
Probably the most fervent enthusiasm of Linh Tú is Epidemiology. Having worked with many lecturers, doctors, and researchers for the past 5 years, Linh Tú understands their difficulties and wishes to join hands in improving public health. She was granted the TPBank STEM scholarship to realize her “Research on Gastroenteritis caused by S.Typhimurium among vulnerable groups to improve infectious disease surveillance”.
The research contributes to building a common, regularly updating a set of clinical and biomedical data, analyzing and identifying potential disease outbreaks among vulnerable groups in Vietnam, hence, helping provide scientists with the data they need to conduct further research and timely disease prevention.
About TPBank
Tien Phong Commercial Joint Stock Bank (TPBank) was established in 2008, inheriting many strengths in modern technology, experience, and financial capacity from strategic shareholders. With the leading goal of digital banking, TPBank has launched many breakthrough products such as LiveBank – automatic 24/7 banking model, Savy – universal savings application, QuickPay – QR code payment, mobile banking application Ebank, etc. TPBank has successfully applied the virtual assistant T’Aio with artificial intelligence AI and machine learning technology, customer identification system by voice and fingerprint, etc. All that unique product has helped TPBank become the first bank to have a diverse and outstanding digital banking ecosystem in Vietnam.
