Part 4: The story of perseverance and discipline
Helping people in the highlands take advantage of the superior features of digital technology is a story of perseverance, gradually helping people change their awareness and behavior. Therefore, the common approach in localities is to choose easy things to do first, difficult things to do later, relying on the community and always being consistent with the motto "taking people as the center, the subject and the goal of development".
Thanh Phuc - Hoai Thu • September 25, 2024
Helping people in the highlands take advantage of the superior features of digital technology is a story of perseverance, gradually helping people change their awareness and behavior. Therefore, the common approach in localities is to choose easy things to do first, difficult things to do later, relying on the community and always being consistent with the motto "taking people as the center, the subject and the goal of development".
Ngoc Lam is a mountainous commune of Thanh Chuong district, the lives of resettled people depend on tea, cassava and acacia trees for raw materials. Although the lives of the people have improved after nearly 20 years of migration to the new homeland, there are still many difficulties. Implementing the province's digital transformation project, determining that if people want to understand and implement it, in addition to promoting propaganda and mobilization, it is necessary to "go to every alley, knock on every door, and guide each person" to install and guide people on operations and how to apply digital technology to life. Accordingly, from 2023, 6 community digital technology groups will be established in the villages.
Recently, Mr. Lo Van Vong - Head of the Ma village community digital technology team, together with the team members, has actively promoted and guided people to use and install some basic applications that are practical in life, such as software for cashless payments, Zalo, administrative procedure lookup, public services and administrative procedure settlement at the reception and result return departments at all levels. Mr. Vong said: In addition to the commune-level community digital technology team, 6 villages in the commune have also established community digital technology teams, each team consists of 5-7 members. Community digital technology teams must "go to every alley, knock on every door" to guide people to install and grasp the skills of using digital platforms and basic digital applications on smartphones, such as free newspaper reading software, cashless payments, personal electronic identification, social insurance...
Day after day, month after month, working like a “carrying the whole load” regardless of the time, regardless of the sun or rain. And until now, the digital transformation is being accelerated, people like Mr. Vong still continue their role, persistently and patiently completing the task.
For the past 2 years, as the Head of Sa Lay village, Muong Long commune (Ky Son) and Head of the Community Digital Technology Team, on a dilapidated motorbike, Mr. Xong Ba Lu and some other members have had to go to households to guide them on how to install digital applications. The production habits of the people are in an isolated area, far from home, so they often "stay in the fields" for a few days before returning home. Many households graze livestock and only return home at night, so the time to mobilize and guide is mainly at night. “People understand the importance of applying digital technology to life. Because now, households all have children working far away, transactions from cash, documents and selling agricultural products... if not applied digitally will be very difficult. But for people to use it proficiently, the staff will have to work very hard, the journey is also very long, must accompany people in each specific stage. At the same time, we ourselves must also regularly update policies, orientations, information on national digital transformation activities, as a knowledge foundation to serve as a guide and support for people to participate in digital transformation.”
But for people to master digital transformation, the staff has to work very hard, the journey is still very long, and they have to accompany people in each specific stage."
Mr. Xong Ba Lu, Chief of Sa Lay village, Muong Long commune (Ky Son)
Considered as the "extended arm" of the Provincial Steering Committee for Digital Transformation, community digital technology teams in mountainous localities have been playing a good role in propaganda, dissemination, and guidance for people to apply digital technology in various areas of social life. Thereby, contributing significantly to promoting digital transformation from the grassroots level. Mr. Vo Trong Phu - Deputy Director of the Department of Information and Communications said: It can be affirmed that the activities of community digital technology teams have been contributing to strongly promoting digital transformation at the grassroots level, especially in mountainous localities. From there, digital technology is spread and brought to every corner of life, promoting digital transformation in the whole society. Along with that, in villages and hamlets, members of the village-level community digital technology teams also established community Zalo groups to exchange, propagate, and guide people to digital transformation in residential areas, ensuring that information and propaganda are consistent, timely, and consistent.
Thanh Son is a remote commune of Anh Son district, a special commune with up to 48% of Thai people, the economic life of the people is still difficult and the intellectual level has certain limitations. Therefore, when selected as a pilot model for digital transformation from 2022, Thanh Son commune has made great efforts to approach. Ms. Dang Thi Tho, Office of Thanh Son Commune People's Committee said: "In addition to implementation documents, meetings, promoting propaganda and mobilization, the most important thing is still "holding hands to show how to do", choosing easy tasks to do first, gradually creating a change in awareness for the people".
Accordingly, the easy part as Ms. Tho discussed is to set up Zalo and Facebook chat groups from the Party Committee, the commune government to the village and hamlet executive committee; groups of self-management groups with the village and hamlet executive committee; each mass organization has a chat group... to disseminate policies and guidelines; related work contents, thereby reducing meetings, shortening propaganda and mobilization time; shortening the distance between cadres and people. Mr. Luong Van Huan, who has 30 years of experience as a cadre in Bong village, said: "Because of my old age, accessing information technology is not without difficulties. Thanks to the support of the children in the Youth Union, hand-holding and specific instructions, I gradually learned how to use social networks and manage the work of the hamlet through Zalo and Facebook applications."
Previously, every month, Mr. Dang Ba Duc, Village Chief of Village 6, Hoi Son Commune (Anh Son) had to spend 2-3 days collecting funds such as environmental sanitation, lighting electricity, etc. "Going to every alley, knocking on every door" but he could not always meet the households to pay him, sometimes, only a few tens of thousands of fund money but had to go to the house 2-3 times. Mr. Dang Ba Duc said: “The whole village has 300 households, both in the village and in the commune, but collecting fees from house to house is very difficult. There are households that are cassava factory workers, have to work in shifts, households that do business, trade in far away markets... so when you come to their house, you are lucky to meet them, otherwise you have to come 2-3 times to collect the fee. However, since implementing digital transformation, people have access to payment via bank transfer, so they only need to notify through the loudspeaker system, through Facebook groups of residential groups, the village's Zalo... then pin the amount of money to be collected, the fund collection account number there, and people will transfer the money themselves, and within just 1 day the fund is collected. It's convenient and beneficial, so much less difficult."
According to Mr. Dang Ba Duc, currently, about 60% of households have bank accounts, use cards, and use electronic payments; 100% of business households have QR codes and accept cashless payments. "The advantage of the hamlet is that most households are workers and civil servants, so they have a high level of education and quick access to technology, so they all receive their salaries by card and have bank accounts, so the rate of cashless transactions is quite high."
Or like in Khai Son commune, the easiest thing in the process of digital transformation that the commune government identified was to install VneID for the people. Therefore, the campaign to install electronic identification was deployed and launched vigorously. Up to now, 100% of adult citizens have completed level 1 electronic identification, many have completed level 2. Ms. Phan Thi Thuy Dung, a Justice officer of Khai Son commune, said: "For this part, the commune established digital transformation community groups with the participation of core forces such as commune officials, commune police, youth union as well as mass organizations. For young people with good access to information technology, they are instructed to do it themselves; for the elderly with limited access to information technology, group members do it for them."
Previously, people in Khe Nhinh village (Huu Kiem commune, Ky Son) grew vegetables on rocky mountains, which were difficult to grow but delicious, a specialty product, but they were only sold retail along National Highway 7. Sometimes, when the vegetables were ready to be harvested, there were no buyers so they had to be pulled out. Since social networks "took over", in order to support people in consuming agricultural products, commune agricultural officials and the commune farmers' association have gone to the fields and farms with people to livestream to sell products, and at the same time, instructed people to follow. Right in the first livestream session, people in the commune and Muong Xen town placed orders, selling vegetables and earning extra delivery fees, so farmers were very excited. Thanks to that, thanks to the spread and sharing of many people, Khe Nhinh vegetable specialties are better known, easier to consume and have higher selling prices.
“Digital economy is a rather distant concept for people in the highlands, difficult to understand, difficult to accept and difficult to implement. Therefore, in order not to spend a lot of time explaining, propagating and mobilizing, it must be practiced immediately. For example, people have never done livestreaming to sell vegetables before, even though everyone has a Facebook, and many people live-stream art performances, weddings and engagements in the village. When "setting an example" for them, when they see the practical benefits of selling vegetables and earning money, they will follow. Now, livestreaming to sell products on digital platforms is practiced skillfully by many households,” said Ms. Vy Duyen, an official of Huu Kiem commune.
Digital economy is a rather distant concept for people in the highlands, difficult to understand, difficult to accept and difficult to implement. Therefore, in order to not waste time explaining, promoting and mobilizing, we should "set an example" for them, when they see the practical benefits it brings, they will follow.
Ms. Vy Duyen, cadre of Huu Kiem commune (Ky Son)
Digital transformation is an inevitable trend. In particular, it is necessary to always identify people as the center of digital transformation. With their own characteristics, mountainous districts encounter many difficulties in the process of implementing digital transformation from technology infrastructure, human resources to mechanisms. Identifying people as the center of digital transformation, 11 mountainous districts are proactively implementing digital transformation contents in the following order: Focusing on strengthening propaganda work to raise awareness for Party committees and authorities about the purpose, meaning, and inevitable trend of digital transformation, so that all political and social systems must participate; Second, organizing the signing of a cooperation program with VNPT Nghe An and starting to work on specific tasks, first of all, building and developing digital government; Third, gradually building a digital society with new habits and culture...
In particular, prioritizing economic development based on digital platforms. From applying technology to promote images in many fields such as community tourism, handicrafts, medicinal economy or even in agriculture. Information technology has not directly participated in production, but plays an important role in business, through connecting production facilities and consumers. Information technology has created social networks, thereby creating the premise for developing trade networks, forming commodity chains to help people access the market more simply and effectively. Many individuals and groups have known how to effectively apply information technology to economic development. In other words, digital technology and information technology have become important resources for economic development in ethnic minority areas in mountainous areas.
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