Two 9th grade boys from a village school are passionate about creating computer software.

Currently, Bao and Binh are 9th grade A1 students, Nguyen Trai Secondary School, Tan Ky district, Nghe An.

The two students and their IT teacher always explore and experiment to produce many new creative works. Photo: Phuong Hao

Bao and Binh are best friends, studying together from grade 1 to grade 9 and sharing a passion for computer science. According to their parents, from a young age they showed a passion and special interest in computers. At first it was for entertainment programs, then for learning programs on the internet.

Since 4th grade, whenever Bao found a good program or useful application for Vietnamese or foreign language lessons, he would share it with Binh. In return, Binh was always the one to show Bao how to use difficult software applications.

However, by only using available utilities, the two children could not create programs that served their learning needs in accordance with their lessons. Therefore, starting from the last year of primary school, the two children explored software programming methods to write their own applications.

Binh and Bao are always companions in creative competitions. Photo: Phuong Hao

To be able to write those applications, it is necessary to understand programming algorithms and have a high school or junior high school level of mathematics. This is difficult for the two students who are only in grades 4 and 5. However, overcoming those difficulties, their passion for digital technology applications has urged them to learn and explore. During the creative process, they failed many times, but the two students from the mountain town were not discouraged. And the first "fun learning, fun learning" applications were born.

In grade 6, knowing the abilities and passion of two good and diligent students, the IT teacher in charge of the middle school always accompanies them to give them more strength.

Teacher Tran Thi Ly said: “The mountainous conditions still make it difficult to access IT, but Bao and Binh have made me try to learn more programming knowledge to support and accompany them, and they themselves have spread the spirit of self-study and creativity to teachers.”

In grade 7, when the school announced a youth IT innovation contest, the two students registered to participate, but unfortunately they did not have a personal computer to regularly update. Seeing Bao and Binh's determination, teacher Tran Thi Ly lent them a laptop and accompanied them in guiding their project for the contest for 5 months.

Bao and Binh with the results of their efforts to explore and create. Photo: Phuong Hao

And during that time, the two students successfully wrote software to compete in the 22nd Nghe An Youth Informatics Contest with the topic "Nghe An, my hometown" and won second prize.

Ms. Tran Thi Ly said: "The application for the contest comes from the practical conditions of tourism in Nghe An. This product is based on the purpose of helping to bring scenic spots, historical relics of Nghe An,... closer to tourists."

The two decided to build a tool that runs on Smartphones so that tourists can easily find out more information about the place they choose as their destination. With tools integrated into the phone's software system such as: Directions; calling a taxi; sharing information; Nghe An map;... will serve users when they need to learn about places and famous landscapes of Nghe An. People with smartphones can download this application to use like other software.

The application was then integrated into WINDOWSPHONE STORE and CH PLAY, visitors can easily install and use this application for free.

In grade 8, Bao and Binh continued to participate in the provincial Science and Technology Innovation Competition and won third prize with the topic "Learning application software about the animal world". Through the application, users and learners can easily access the fastest and most understandable way about animals in grade 7 biology.

In grade 9, with the topic "Viet Browser", Bao and Binh continued to bring honor to their district when they won second prize at the 24th Youth Informatics Contest of Nghe An province. With this same topic, the two students won the Encouragement Prize in the Youth and Children's Creativity Contest of Nghe An province. Accompanying the students was always the enthusiastic support of teacher Tran Thi Ly. Although the end of the school year was limited, both teacher and student did not mind the difficulties, taking advantage of every moment and place to discuss and complete the topic.

Viet Browser software is a simple software application that converts text language into speech to help deaf people communicate with others more easily. In addition, this software can also convert the other person's voice into text, helping deaf people understand the exact content of information when communicating with normal people.

“We directly tested several deaf people in our district and found that the results were quite positive, with quite high accuracy.”

However, the most difficult thing is that Google's support tool still cannot process Vietnamese into speech, we have tried to overcome it to help deaf people have a powerful support tool. Without needing other cumbersome devices" - Binh shared.

Bao said: In the future, we plan to develop many more features, more interesting, more attractive, suitable for the hearing impaired.

Talking about her two favorite students, teacher Tran Thi Ly proudly said: Bao and Binh are a pair of close friends admired by everyone. It is their passion and intense enthusiasm that has created creative products and brought them success like today. Every difficulty is an opportunity for them to overcome themselves. The two of them always try every day to affirm their direction and passion for science and technology.