Gaithersburg square shopping center

Under the MoU signed Wednesday, the two parties will set up a joint venture to manufacture solid-state batteries for electric cars. The joint venture will be licensed to use ProLogium’s patented solid-state battery pack assembly technology.

This is a strategic step for VinFast in mastering battery technology for electric vehicles, laying a foundation for its research and development of smart and advanced electric vehicles in the future.

Founded in 2006, ProLogium is the world’s leading solid-state battery maker. In 2017, ProLogium became the first company in the world to have a test line for solid-state battery technology for automotive applications.

Its solid-state batteries have passed safety tests in Europe and China, which are the world’s largest electric vehicle markets.

It is also cooperating with large electric cars manufacturers to test a new battery technology and expects to deploy it for mass-production in 2023-2024.

By using solid-state batteries, VinFast electric cars will be able to go longer distances, reduce charging time, and increase the total number of times they can be charged.

VinFast’s partnership with ProLogium is a part of its plan to become a global smart electric car brand.

In January, VinFast introduced three new electric self-driving car models. It is also setting up electric charging stations nationwide , aiming at 40,000 charging ports for electric bikes and cars by the end of 2021.

VinFast sold 31,500 cars in Vietnam last year. Since entering the auto industry three years ago the company now has a plant in the northern province of Hai Phong and R&D centers in Australia, Germany and the U.S.

Armed with little more than a smartphone and a dream, inexperienced cryptocurrency investors in Vietnam are hoping to hit it big with Pi – a cryptocurrency that can be mined from a phone.

As the crypto-craze in Vietnam continues being fueled by skyrocketing bitcoin prices and overnight millionaires, investors in the country are looking for low-barrier avenues to make their own fortunes on digital currency.

Enter Pi, a relatively new digital token that can be mined through the Pi Network app, advertised as “breakthrough tech [that] allows you to mine [Pi] on your phone without draining your battery.”

Unlike conventional cryptocurrency mining, which involves the use of significant computer power to verify the legitimacy of transactions in order to earn tokens as a reward, obtaining Pi only requires ‘miners’ to log into the application and tap a button every few hours.

With such a low barrier to entry, Pi mining has pulled in scores of Vietnamese crypto-newbies in recent weeks.

“We’ve missed the boat on bitcoin, so many of us have switched to mining Pi,” said Duc Danh, a Facebook user in Ho Chi Minh City.

“There’s nothing to lose.

“After a few years, if the project succeeds, each Pi could be worth dozens of U.S. dollars.”

Also in on the Pi hype is Vinh from Phu Nhuan District, a Pi miner who has recruited 70 other ‘miners’ and aggregated over 1,000 Pi coins for doing so as part of a Pi Network program akin to a multi-level marketing scheme.

“Pi mining costs nothing but bits of phone storage,” Vinh argued.

“What if the price shoots up to a few hundred U.S. dollars in the future?

“No one expected bitcoin to soar to $50,000.”

New members on the Pi Network receive one free Pi coin and start with a mining speed of 0.1 Pi per hour.

This velocity will increase with more accepted referrals, thus incentivizing users to gather as many new recruits under their umbrella as possible.

On Facebook, Pi Network groups have amassed hundreds of thousands of members curious about crypto mining, Pi’s identity verification system, and security.

K., a newbie in one of these groups, shared great optimism for the cryptocurrency.

“I learnt about Pi the other day on Facebook, and have had high hopes for it ever since,” he said.

Despite not being listed on big-name cryptocurrency exchanges, Pi’s trading value is already receiving real-world recognition, with one coffee shop in Ho Chi Minh City accepting the token as payment.

There are also reports of an e-commerce platform that accepts Pi as payment at a rate of VND100,000 ($4.5) for one Pi token, though the website was taken down on February 28.

No free lunch

Vietnamese users should take careful consideration before joining the Pi Network, said Dang Minh Tuan, a blockchain expert at the Posts and Telecommunications Institute of Technology in Hanoi, during a conversation with Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.

The most obvious thing, according to Tuan, is the risk of giving away personal data to the app developers.

With a community estimated at over 15 million users worldwide, Pi is currently a gold mine of personal data that can be abused for targeted ads on Google, Facebook, and TikTok.

On top of that, Pi’s core team has not yet registered itself as a legal entity, which renders the contracts and ownership accords between users and Pi unprotected by law.

Pi has also not yet released its source code to the public, making the aggregate supply and demand of Pi tokens unidentifiable.

This indicates a huge risk for users involved because the developers have the power to inflate the currency as they please.

Sharing the skeptic’s view, financial expert Lam Minh Chanh sounded the alarm about scams in the likes of Onecoin, Skyway, or MyAladdinz.

According to Chanh, Pi is not completely free as users have to invest a great amount of time and phone resources.

They also face data security risks in return for the hopes of high investment returns that are fanned by vague speculation.

“Miners are unlikely to get rich. There is no free lunch,” he said.

According to Nguyen Hoang Minh, deputy director of the State Bank branch in Ho Chi Minh City, bitcoin and other similar types of cryptocurrency are not methods of payment compliant with law in Vietnam.

Issuing, supplying, and using bitcoin as well as other similar types of cryptocurrency as forms of payment are also prohibited.

Accordingly, users and suppliers of cryptocurrency in the country will be declared culpable and subject to penalties.

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Bitcoin rose 5% to $50,942.58 on Wednesday, adding $2,426.23 to its previous close.

Bitcoin, the world’s biggest and best-known cryptocurrency, has risen 83.7% from the year’s low of $27,734 on Jan. 4.

Bitcoin has fallen 12.7% from the year’s high of $58,354.14 on Feb. 21.

Bitcoin’s price soared this year as major firms, such as BNY Mellon, asset manager BlackRock Inc, credit card giant Mastercard Inc, backed cryptocurrencies, while those such as Tesla Inc Square Inc and MicroStrategy Inc invested in bitcoin.

Ether, the coin linked to the ethereum blockchain network, rose 7.18 % to $1,595.64 on Wednesday, adding $106.84 to its previous close.

During a dive on a small island off the coast of Bình Thuận Province, Nguyễn Văn Giởi and other tour guides were able to see hundreds of poisonous crown-of-thorns starfish, which are coral predators.

Coral is seriously damaged by crown-of-thorns starfish. — Photo provided by Nguyễn Văn Giởi

“When diving to look at coral reefs on Hòn Tranh isle, we saw crown-of-thorns starfish seriously devastate the coral reefs,” said Giởi, a tour guide on Phú Quý Island in the south-central coastal province.

He and other tour guides on the larger island of Phú Quý decided to set up a team “to catch these poisonous crown-of-thorns starfish to save coral.”

According to the Australian Institute of Marine Science, crown-of-thorns starfish are marine invertebrates that feed on coral and occur naturally on reefs throughout the Indo-Pacific region, and when conditions are right, they can reach plague proportions and devastate hard coral communities.

The institute’s research has revealed that crown-of-thorns starfish are a major cause of coral loss on the Great Barrier Reef.

These starfish can grow to over 50 centimetres in diametre, and one individual can consume over 13 square metres of coral reef per year, according to the New Heaven Reef Conservation Programme’s team in Thailand.

When Giởi and other members of the team have free time, they go to Hòn Tranh isle to catch crown-of-thorns starfish.

“In one day, we can catch nearly 500-700 starfish. We often catch them in summer because the water is warm for diving,” Giởi said.

Compared to the past, more and more crown-of-thorns starfish are appearing because of an imbalance in the marine ecosystem, he said, adding that starfish predators such as giant triton snail and sea urchins are overfished on the island to serve tourism.

Sea urchins play a critical role in maintaining the balance between coral and algae.

Nguyễn Trọng Tấn, another member of the team, said: “Diving to see coral reefs on Hòn Tranh isle appeals to tourists. So when coral is lost by crown-of-thorns starfish, tourists will no longer like to come to the island. His job as a tour guide also will be affected.”

Tấn has called on other tour guides to join his team to catch crown-of-thorns starfish when they have free time.

Crown-of-thorns starfish are very poisonous and dangerous for divers, he said. When their spines accidentally hit a diver, it causes swelling and severe inflammation which could be life-threatening.

Giởi said: “We’re very careful when catching starfish. We are working for sustainable tourism development on the island.”

The Bình Thuận Province’s Fisheries Division estimates that each 100 square metres contains 50-60 crown-of-thorns starfish.

Bình Thuận Province has two marine reserves in Cù Lao Câu and Phú Quý islands.

Phú Quý Island is surrounded by a thick ring of coral reefs. Its deepest point is 42 metres. The island has 72 species of seaweed, 134 species of stony coral and 15 species of mollusks.

According to the Fisheries Division, 10 years ago, the sea surrounding the island was recognised as having the most beautiful coral reefs in the country. However, over the last several years, coral reefs have been devastated or lost.

That is why the province set up the marine reserve on the island.

The division has been working with the island’s People’s Committee to carry out a crown-of-thorns starfish monitor programme. Their staff dive to catch and find them.

It has also asked for help from the Directorate of Fisheries and Institute of Oceanography in Khánh Hòa Province’s Nha Trang city to provide the optimal methods to kill them.

According to the comprehensive plan to develop the IT human resources, Vietnam needed 1 million workers in the IT field in 2020. Yet the reality shows that there are only 600,000 IT students being trained in 400 higher educational institutes and 8 key IT training centers nationwide.

Statistics from the Institute of Information Technology Strategy (under the Ministry of Information & Communications) show that 72 percent of IT students lack practical experience, while 42 percent are weak at team work. Only 15 percent of IT graduates satisfy the demands of employers.

Vietnam now has over 700 IT companies working in key fields of the IT industry, including 220 foreign ones. They mostly locate in major cities or software parks.

Notably, despite a high job potential, the AI field still attracts little attention from both learners and trainers. There is no formal university department or school to specifically provide tertiary education in this field. Most curriculum focus on software developing, which is a rather old trend of the previous decade. This calls for a serious curriculum redesign to answer the current needs of IT companies, both domestic and international.

There should be an establishment of AI departments in universities or the development of such majors as computer vision, natural language processing, Big Data, robotics. Tertiary educational institutes should cooperate with IT businesses for internship programs, career guiding fairs, academic challenges, and training equipment provision (like server clusters, computing clusters, GPU, robots, IoT devices).

Experts voiced that in order for HCMC to own sufficient core AI human resources, the municipal authorities must first identify the market needs and the ability to apply research result in reality. They then have to actively link the development of smart city, innovative urban areas with the growth of talented AI employees.

These actions will gradually form a complete AI ecosystem so that HCMC can transform into a database center of the whole Southeast Asian region in 2030, and of the world in the far future.

There must be clear short-term as well as long-term strategies to turn HCMC into a smart city, including the three key points of research and training, technology mastering, and innovation promotion.

Regarding the first key point, more investment should be pour into the AI field via supporting funds, collaboration with national and international partners to take advantage of all possible strengths.

A kind of ‘shared university’ for AI training could be formed, where educational facilities are located in one place, and the teaching staff or research teams come to perform their tasks. This model does need specific policies to regulate particular responsibilities and rights of each partner, as well as the role of the municipal authorities in the project.

Director of Vietnam National University – HCMC Vu Hai Quan stated that the potential of key AI research teams directly shape the training direction for new AI workers. They are the model for the young generations to look up to.

Therefore, the AI human resources training project should consist of financial aid for major AI research teams to expand their study in various fields, the construction of AI labs, the organization of academic contests about AI to tackle existing problems in the community.

These actions will no doubt increase the position of Vietnam in the global AI top list and the awareness of AI importance in the society.

By Thanh Hung – Translated by Thanh Tam