Innovation Strategist Hal Raveche Champions Vietnam Entrepreneurs

NEW YORK, NY, March 19, 2014 (Press-News.org) On February 24, 2014, at the SaiGon High-Tech Park in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, American innovation expert Dr. Hal Raveche conducted an extraordinary workshop titled "Enabling Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Vietnam's Universities." The workshop was co-sponsored by Nguyen Tat Thanh University (Vietnam's largest private university) in cooperation with the SaiGon High-Tech Park.

Dr. Raveche is the Founder and President of Innovation Strategies International, a US-based consulting firm that assists universities, corporations and government agencies with entrepreneurship and innovation. He served for more than two decades as the president of Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey.

In 2013, Dr. Raveche was appointed to the Board of Advisors of the SaiGon High-Tech Park Innovation Center, where he helps to grow startup companies founded by Vietnamese entrepreneurs. Raveche is currently working with startups in the High-Tech Park to develop energy and security-management systems, as well as robotic storage and retrieval systems.

"It's striking the extent to which the young Vietnamese academics, and the university students, have adopted the principles of creative innovation and entrepreneurship," said Dr. Raveche. "They see the high-growth economies of Asia and South Asia, and they know instinctively that there are ways to reproduce those models of economic success."

During his presentation, Raveche stressed that the economic growth of Vietnam will be driven by sustainable SMEs founded and built by Vietnamese. He argued that nearly half of the under-18 population is now female, and that many female entrepreneurs will need to emerge for Vietnam to achieve steady job growth and revenues to sustain economic progress.

Nguyen Tat Thanh University has been particularly energetic in its pursuit of the "Innovation University Model," and the administration has positioned the university as a leader in the reform of Vietnamese higher education to meet the needs of the globalized economy.

Being one of Vietnam's only two national high-tech parks and one of Ho Chi Minh City's five focal economic projects, SaiGon High-Tech Park (SHTP) has received exceptional support from both the central and local governments, as well as from other relevant state agencies.

By 2015, SHTP is set to become a technology and science city that will greatly enhance the economic, technological, and intellectual base of Ho Chi Minh City and the Southern Economic Region of Vietnam. Ultimately, the Park will serve as a model for Vietnamese technological innovation, intellectual capital development and the innovation economy.

Dr. Raveche works frequently with universities, businesses and government agencies throughout East Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia to assist in cultivating technology innovation and entrepreneurship. He is available to provide expert commentary and to address business associations and other audiences on developments in Vietnam and other high-growth nations throughout the region.

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