“Good afternoon and welcome to Fulbright University Vietnam.
As we host our inaugural EdTech Vietnam luncheon in partnership with two wonderful organizations – EdTech and InnoLab Asia, I want to thank EdTech and InnoLab for their commitment to improving the future of learning and workforce development in the region by bringing in leaders such as yourselves to learn from and engage one another. I also want to thank my colleagues, Spencer and Jimmy and the team at Fulbright’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation for helping to lead this effort on behalf of our university.
For those of you who are visiting Fulbright for the first time today, we are proud to be Vietnam’s first private, not-for-profit, liberal arts higher education institution. Since our founding, we have worked to serve Vietnamese society by reimagining higher education in the country through the lens of an open and liberal education with a unique Vietnamese identiy.
One of our most important aims in this endeavor is to bring people together from across sectors to share ideas, to develop and communicate best practices, and to take lessons generated from particular fields and see how they may be of use to people in other areas of teaching and learning.
It’s wonderful to see all of you in this room today knowing the work you are all doing to transform the learning experience in Vietnam and the tremendous impact this has on students across the country.
Like many of you, Fulbright University is embarking on a not-so-well-trodden path as we work to reimagine education in the region so that Vietnam’s future workforce can be relevant to what we are seeing in the world today.
Convenings such as this EdTech symposium challenges us to reflect and be purposeful about the important roles we all play in pushing the boundary of education.
One challenge we should all be working to address is ensuring that Vietnam’s future workforce is adequately prepared to address the region’s greatest needs.
The COVID-19 pandemic has evolved this challenge by forcing institutions to reflect on how they can continue to prepare students when in-person learning is not possible.
This includes working to ensure our students are effectively engaged, our educators are empowered to use technology, and that our learning tools encourage students to critically think whether they are in a classroom or behind a computer screen.
Whether you are an entrepreneur, investor, educator, or involved community member, you have the opportunity to move the needle forward on this matter.
My hope is that the conversations you partake in and the insights you gain from our lineup of distinguished speakers will open you up to new approaches and perspectives to enrich your own work in the edtech sphere.
Thank you again for being a part of this important work and thank you for what your presence here means for the future of learning in Vietnam.”
Ms Dam Bich Thuy – President of Fulbright University Vietnam
