An IT application called “Virtual Assistant for Vietnamese” (VAV) developed by the MDN-Team from the University of Engineering and Technology of the Vietnam National University in Hanoi has been gaining popularity among smartphone users.

An IT application called “Virtual Assistant for Vietnamese” (VAV) developed by the MDN-Team from the University of Engineering and Technology of the Vietnam National University in Hanoi has been gaining popularity among smartphone users.

In the two months since its publication, the app has been downloaded 75,000 times.

According to Dr. Phan Xuan Hieu, head of the team, VAV enables Android users to interact with their phones by sending messages, placing phone calls, scheduling tasks, and composing and sending voice SMS in Vietnamese.

Hieu said it was designed and developed using available technologies and services such as voice recognition services from Google, digital maps and Wikipedia.

The team used artificial intelligence technology that handles and understands natural language to help VAV analyse the intentions of its users, executing their commands quickly and accurately.

Thanks to utilities suitable for Vietnamese people, VAV has received positive feedback from smartphone users who hope the team will continue updating and expanding the app’s features, and develop it for iOS and Windows Phone.

The MDN-Team, which includes mostly students, has just released the second version of this application with a more user-friendly interface and features.

It paid special attention to expanding VAV’s application area to define many kinds of intentions in various fields such as traffic regulations, smart searches and medical information.

IT applications such as VAV need to be promoted to create more and more useful products made in Vietnam, said President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee Nguyen Thien Nhan at a ceremony to present prizes for the “ Initiatives for the Community 2015" contest.