By KisStartup, in collaboration with the ICM Falk Foundation

In 2021, all student projects from the C-Plastics program successfully validated their business models, gained customers including large corporates, improved prototypes, and moved towards small-scale testing. Yet, despite the good results, most student-led scientific research projects fail to become successful ventures.

Aiming to finally understand the root causes and recommend local-centric solution paths, KisStartup, in partnership with the Ida C. & Morris Falk Foundation publish a bilingual case study “University-based Innovation for Technical students” uncovering the ecosystem’s gaps but most importantly, opportunities for growth.

From our experience in supporting and working with local youth organisations and universities, we realized that solutions from students’ scientific research findings have the potential to become commercial products accepted by the market. Most of them, however, have stopped after the leading students graduate from university. Meanwhile, local businesses are looking for locally-built technology solutions but struggle to access them due to the lack of commercialization.

This research partly shows the overall picture of the Vietnamese startup ecosystem around engineering and technology-oriented universities. While tech startups are thriving on interdisciplinary trends, the rise of smart hardware and tech-enabled environmental solutions, etc., Vietnamese universities are still struggling to catch up and build an equally-promising innovative ecosystem.