In 2017 we began a new initiative – the Engaging With Vietnam “Hackathon.”
The term “hackathon” is normally used to refer to an event where people get together to create software in a short period of time as part of a competition. The Engaging With Vietnam #Hackathon employed this format to get groups of young people to come up with solutions to various issues related to the theme of the 9th Engaging With Vietnam conference: Exploring Development, Tourism and Sustainability from Multi-disciplinary and Multi-directional Perspectives.
The 1st Engaging With Vietnam Hackathon was entitled “Interweaving Tourism, Heritage, History, Development, and Technologies.”
A few months before the conference was held, a public call for participation in the #Hackathon was sent out. 50 individuals were chosen from a pool of over 100 submissions, and were divided into 10 groups. Each group was then assigned a mentor and randomly picked a topic to address.
This initiative was led by Phan Le Ha and a team of students from various US institutions, with the enthusiastic support of colleagues in Vietnam.