The Story of the Brain, the Computer and the Sky

Going first and doing first has many advantages and benefits, but at the same time, it is inevitable that there will be unexpected stumbling blocks and risks - my friend spoke with a rare seriousness. Here, attracting and inviting attractive investment, flexible mechanisms, this factory and that project springing up, in the immediate future, budget revenue increases, average income per capita increases, being graded to upgrade to provincial level, being praised for all kinds of things, freely "showing off" with provinces inside and outside.

But before half of the term was over, we had to face the situation of people complaining about land compensation, then corrupt project officials, then headaches about environmental issues, people blocking roads to prevent construction vehicles from passing, exchanging fish and shrimp... Losing officials is not as big as losing people's trust, to fix it might take several terms!

My friend sighed and continued the story…

A seemingly small but not so small story is… football. The transition from subsidized, grassroots football to professional, corporate football, there are things that are now breaking out that are heartbreaking, more than a bitter lesson.

A city used to have a very strong A1 football team, many places had to go to school and "beg" for points to stay in the league. Changing the mechanism, this place took the lead in selling the stadium, handing the team over to a business to manage, the city just had to... go watch! In the first few seasons, the players received high salaries, generous bonuses, and morale was on the rise, so everything seemed to be going very smoothly.

But now the city has to find a way to buy back the famous stadium (which is overgrown with grass and waiting to be divided into lots for sale) and has not been able to get it back for several years. The football team changes coaches and players like eating, and has fallen miserably in the rankings.

That said, we go slowly, endure the reputation of a poor team, every year there is a "brain drain" situation, the key is to maintain the brand, maintain youth training, not rise to the top but not to the point of struggling, lagging behind.

Let me ask, Nghe An people who love football so much, with such results of gains/losses, are they satisfied, will they accept to continue on the old path or break away to find a new path?

Of course, there must be a way to do it, with its own effectiveness. If we just wait for others to fail and learn from their mistakes, they will have already gone far, far away! I gently reminded my friend while he was still engrossed and excited.

Wait a minute, have you forgotten our father's catchphrase "hurry up, the earth will press down"?

***

A provincial leader told a story that a dozen years ago, a leading private investor in Vietnam followed him to survey Cua Lo and Cua Hoi to find ways to develop tourism. After following him to the end, he heard a sincere and specific answer from the investor, which was that if we could help or do charity work for our homeland, we would not regret anything, but this is doing business, we have to calculate, arrange, and have order!

Another investor, when hearing me tell the above story, added that it is true that one-season tourism will be very “choosy” about investors, but the social environment and investment environment cannot be overlooked, for example, if visitors are ripped off and the government does not know/handle it, or the tourism - entertainment - resort system has not been formed, then no one dares to take the lead in investing.

That leading investor is true to his word. They chose a bustling tourist destination with four seasons, where all conditions are met to build famous tourist areas that attract domestic and foreign tourists. Cua Lo and Cua Hoi areas were of course also chosen, but certainly not the first choice, immediately, but almost in order!

So what about all the effort, intelligence, big and small investors, all these areas and that areas that have been built in my hometown for a long time? I argued.

Who can deny that! It is difficult to do, only doing it well is worth mentioning, but if it is as easy as turning your hand, people will bring it to your mouth, just sit and collect the money, then what is the point of talking about it? Not to mention the big cat catching rats, the small cat catching mice, according to the division of labor...

My hometown is developing slowly, quite steadily, not fast but certainly sustainable, right? To put it bluntly, there has not been a necessary breakthrough, it is still average and at this rate, we will lose to our younger siblings, will be behind our neighbors with the same conditions and circumstances.

Going slowly and steadily does not cost anything but also does not gain anything significant or worth mentioning. Now, to break through, to go fast and effectively in a certain direction, a certain wing, a certain stage, one must first accept losing something worth losing, acceptable, in order to hope for great, sustainable, long-term results. It is easy to say, there is no shortage of plans and projects, but what to do specifically, who to do, who accepts to go first, who takes the first and last responsibility... is the most difficult and arduous thing.

Yes, we must rise up and learn the will and ways of the Japanese. From hardship, ashes, and failures, the Japanese still created a "miracle" of economic development. Learning the will and ways of the Israelis is even more true, when this country rose from the desert to the pinnacle of science and technology, first of all in agricultural production.

Even learning from the small things that other people do is necessary at this time, like the Philippines for example. This country has adopted English as its official language since 1935, making it the third country in the world to speak English. From this very favorable foundation, they have attracted foreign investors to open English training centers with flexible and open mechanisms and immediately attracted many people around the world to come and study.

Even though this place has an average of 23 storms/year of level 12 or higher, their English teaching center opening has not changed at all, and the profits are still huge. It is not because of the harsh nature that we have to give up and give up. There, let's go there and see what resources we have in the sky, on the ground and in our minds (our unique strengths!) to choose from, to push forward, regardless of the wind and sand.

It is very possible that the model and way of doing things in the time of worrying about ensuring enough food, even from hybrid seeds, the time of finding every way to have a cement factory (even though the neighbors had gone first), running around like a pinwheel to expand and upgrade seaports, airports, exporting peanut shells, stone blocks... following the trend is no longer suitable and cannot be done now.

Now is the time of the 4.0 industrial revolution. Someone said that the resources in the ground are gone, and if there are any, they must be saved for the future. Going up by exploiting resources is a narrow path, if not a dead end, deadlock and failure.

Not long ago, a provincial leader who had grown up to become a central leader, when returning to his hometown, brought a working group, inviting everyone to sit down to listen and learn about the story of technology, about using the brain, computers and the sky to create information technology products of high economic value.

The young technology director, a native son, along with a group of engineers and employees of about 40 people, created an annual business profit value equivalent to the budget revenue of tens of thousands of billions of VND of the entire province at that time. 40 people creating a production value equivalent to 3,000,000 people is a real story, not just in one year but for many years!

Nghe An people, Nghe An children have had achievements in the province, domestically and internationally in all fields, have studied, worked and grown up (like that technology director) is countless.

The question is why are those resources being dispersed, pouring into other places, stuck in the same thinking as the leading private investor mentioned above? Or have they been gathering together, spreading messages about the story of the Japanese, the Israelis, about the concretization process to build Vinh, then Nghe An to become the center for training high-quality human resources in the region and gradually expanding further, not following the way that the world has succeeded, but with a different, new, unprecedented way in the true spirit of the 4.0 technology revolution?

The story seems to have no end because, after all, my friend is just a…theoretical person, listening and speaking, struggling and speaking, full of enthusiasm but lacking in practice and not yet starting to do a specific task so he doesn’t know where it is stuck, difficult or favorable, easy, who to call to have enough strength, enough capacity to solve it or get discouraged, retreat because he only hears people talking but doesn’t see people doing it…

Going slowly but surely, daring to make breakthroughs, accepting to lose some things to create new developments is certainly still a difficult question, an exam in which many people can answer the theory part easily, but only when it comes to the practical part do they sweat, right, my dear friend?