In Vietnam, inventors lack everything to invent

A technology trade fair has just been organized by the HCM City University of Technology, which gathered a lot of machines and equipment invented by the lecturers and the students of the school.

Though this is only a trade fair at the university level, it regularly attracts the attention of the public. The robot which cleans pipelines and mobile welding robot, invented by the lecturers and students of the school have been brought into life.

Prior to that, filming robot and virtual five-axis milling machine had also been utilized in reality. These have been called the important goals scored by the lecturers and students of the leading technology university in Vietnam, if noting that very few ideas in Vietnam can be developed and commercialized to serve people’s lives.

Dr Nguyen Tan Tien from the HCM City University of Technology said that Robocon, the annual robot competition among university students, is just the game while the robots presented at the competition cannot be utilized in reality. It is necessary to develop the ideas which can be utilized in reality.

When asked what inventors need to successfully develop ideas into realistic, Tien said there are two important factors, which are the dynamism and enthusiasm of students, and the practical knowledge of teachers. Of course, money also plays a very important role. (*)

Commenting about the current situation of the robot industry, Nguyen Ba Thuan from the Lac Hong University said Vietnam has more than enough capacity to make robots, because Vietnam has good researchers.€

However, he said that the researchers still lack necessary conditions to turn their ideas into realistic, which explains why the inventions cannot be utilized.

The biggest problem, according to Thuan, is that there is not enough equipment to make products. Vietnam now even has to import the equipment making legs and hands of robots, let alone the programming. Therefore, in many cases, inventions remain just models, Thuan said.

Dr Nguyen Huu Phuong from the HCM City University for Natural Sciences also said that the products just can exist in laboratories. If someone wants to develop the products, he needs more money and more efforts to improve the design, technology and the art as well.

New ideas should be born in an industrial environment and then implemented in accordance with an industrial process, he said. Since there has not been the cooperation between researchers and industry producers, a lot of research projects worth 2-3 billion dong have never been commercialized.

What to do to bring robots into life?

Joining hands with businesses proves to be the only way for researchers to bring their inventions into life.

67 billion dong in 2010 and 77 billion dong in 2011 is the turnover brought by technology research and technology transfer to the HCM City University of Technology.

Tien believes that the demand for robots is very big, because automation is the only way for enterprises to increase their productivity.

Thuan thinks that Vietnamese robot industry should start from making simple and small products which can be utilized in life. For example, Vietnam has enough equipment to make robots to clean swimming ponds. In the long term, he said, it is necessary to have the enterprises which come forward and buy ideas, then place orders to make products in big quantity

Meanwhile, Phuong thinks that it will take a lot of time if scientists and Vietnamese companies want to build a robot industry from the beginning. It would be better if the State sets up reasonable policies to encourage foreign enterprises to make investment and cooperate with Vietnamese companies.

Source: Sai Gon Tiep Thi



(*) Không đồng ý với những nhận định từ bài viết nêu trên, trung bình 1000 bằng sáng chế cấp bởi US Patent Office, chỉ có 2 bằng sáng chế có thể tạo ra sản phẩm

99.8% fail. Only 3,000 patents out of 1.5 million patents are commercially viable. “In truth, odds are stacked astronomically against inventors, and no marketing outfit can change them. ‘There are around 1.5 million patents in effect and in force in this country, and of those, maybe 3,000 are commercially viable,’ [Richard Maulsby, director of the Office of Public Affairs for the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office], says. ‘It's a very small percentage of patents that actually turn into products that make money for people. On top of all that, to get ripped off for tens of thousands of dollars adds insult to injury.” What percent of patents make money? How many patents become products? Percent of patents commercialized. Percent of patents that get approved (Richard Maulsby, director of public affairs for the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, quoted in Karen E. Klein, Smart Answers, “Avoiding the Inventor's Lament,” Business Week, November 10, 2005)

Source: http://www.inventionstatistics.com/Innovation_Risk_Taking_Inventors.html