The 2008’s Sao Khue awards were received by 47 individuals, organizations and enterprises in Ha Noi Sunday. Attending the ceremony was Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education Nguyen Thien Nhan.
Established by the Viet Nam Software Association in 2003, the Sao Khue awards are granted yearly to individuals, organizations and enterprises for significant contributions to the development of Viet Nam’s software industry and information technology.
This year, the awards were given to eight individuals, eight outstanding software companies, 17 commercial software products, four software services, three e-commerce products and seven new software products.
Among those receiving awards was Dr. Chu Hao, a former of deputy minister of Science and Technology. He was the first to introduce the Internet to Viet Nam.
Eight foreign companies were granted the “Vietnam Software Industry’s and Information Technology’s golden partners” awards, namely Agilis Solutions, Canon, HitachiSoft, Harvey Nash, Microsoft, IBM and Motorola.
Although the software industry’s sales in Viet Nam reached nearly US$500 million in 2007, a four-fold increase over 2003 when total sale were US$120 million, the country is still facing great challenges, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education Nguyen Thien Nhan told participants.
Mr. Nhan stressed that the software sector in general and the information technology sector in particular, need to devise long-term development strategies focusing on human resource development to help the country’s 1 million qualified IT employees by 2015.
