Medlink – the supplier of a platform for direct connectivity among drug companies and pharmacies has won the first prize of VietChallenge 2019, an annual startup competition for Vietnamese entrepreneurs from all over the world.

Medlink surpassed eight other competitors in the final round of the contest, which was held on September 7 at Massachusetts Institute of Technology by the Association of Vietnamese Students and Professionals in the US.

The second prize came to VVN AI, a supplier of artificial intelligence to recognise images and texts, which is applied in the transaction process at shops and banks, helping save time and enhance convenience and security.

Timobile from Indonesia and Graam from Vietnam shared the third prize of the competition, which received more than 400 entries in total.

The prize winners will become partners of the Viettel Military Industry and Telecoms Group, giving them a chance to provide services to nearly 100 million customers of Viettel around the globe.

Presenting awards to the winners at the event, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Tran Van Tung reiterated Government support for Vietnamese students abroad to launch innovative startups and make more contributions to their homeland.

He noted that on September 6, the ministry launched a programme to seek investment for Vietnamese startups with the support of US partners, in order to organise Techfest Vietnam 2019 – the first national innovation festival. The festival is scheduled for September 13 in California, the US, with the participation of 200 intellectuals, experts, investors and representatives of innovative startup ecosystem of the two countries.

A delegation led by Deputy Minister Cuong had engaged in a series of in-depth discussions with major US partners in Boston in Massachusetts state and San Francisco in California state, and will visit world leading technology groups of Amazon and Google, as well as Silicon Valley.

The official revealed that the ministry plans to sign many deals with US partners, including Ai20x, Pegasus Tech Venture and Stripe Inc.

One of the highlights of the Techfest Vietnam 2019 in the US is a Silicon Valley – Vietnam connection forum, where representatives from Vietnam and US startup ecosystems will meet to discuss connection opportunities.

Techfest Vietnam in the US will be the first step towards the organization of Techfest Vietnam 2019, scheduled for December this year in Quang Ninh province.