THACO Chairman Tran Ba Duong graced VNU-HCM's 2023 Annual Conference, advocating for student welfare through better facilities and living standards. He further championed university-business partnerships, brimming with excitement about their potential.

2023 saw VNU-HCM soar on multiple fronts, innovating management, boosting training and research, igniting innovation and partnerships, and anchoring its place globally. Yet, amidst these achievements, challenges with student facilities and living standards lingered, hinting at further heights to conquer.

Championing collaboration, THACO Chairman Tran Ba Duong urged VNU-HCM to embrace public-private partnerships (PPP) for facility development and non-profit partnerships, citing it as a strategic move amidst competition from private, foreign, and fellow VNU member universities.

THACO Chairman Duong went beyond traditional models, delving into student well-being by proposing a nutritious takeaway food model tailored to Vietnamese students' needs. He pledged a swift rollout, starting at VNU-HCM's Polytechnic University before spreading across the university system.

THACO Chairman raised a call for bridging the gap between academia and industry needs. He pinpointed human resource training as the cornerstone, and also urged universities to dive deeper into research areas like biology, semiconductors, and AI by mapping practical demands onto training programs, cultivating a thriving workforce in the evolving economic landscape.

Highlighting the pitfalls of poorly aligned partnerships, THACO Chairman Duong lamented, "A plethora of school-business agreements have failed due to mismatched expectations. Businesses overestimate universities' responsiveness, while universities overvalue the real-world applicability of their offerings."