Mr Olando Ayala, Senior Vice President of Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential Programme, recently paid a working visit to Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) to discuss the initiatives to get information technology to small businesses, and preparation for the specific plan for Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential Campaign introduced by Mr Bill Gates, Microsoft Chairman, on his visit to Bac Ninh province in April 2006. On the occasion, Vietnam Business Forum’s reporter interviewed Mr. Olando Ayala.
Would you please tell us the purpose of the campaign?
The Unlimited Potential Campaign launched by Microsoft aims to increase computer literacy among all members of the population. In Vietnam, we are going to cities and provinces to give training and help local people to apply software.
How will Microsoft cooperate with VCCI to carry out this campaign in Vietnam?
On this occasion, we would like to represent our four initiatives. Our first initiative is offering IT training courses for civil servants, businessmen, teachers, and people in the rural areas. VCCI and Microsoft will join hands in designing training programmes to grant IT certificates. These training progammes will provide better knowledge for civil servants so that they will have opportunities to find better work. We have already offered these programmes in some countries and they gained significant success. The second initiative we would like to represent is using the IT infrastructure and e-portals. Based on our training programmes, businesses will have the chance to better access ICT applications. In the past five years, we have invested US$ 250 million in building training models in 100 countries to improve the skills and capacity for small businesses. Personally, I think it is very important for Vietnamese businesses to build skills and capacity. And our next initiative which has been carried out in 30 countries worldwide is the partnership in IT access. This helps civil servants buy personal computers on installment plans. This goes well with IT training as those provided with IT knowledge may wish to own a personal computer. The fourth initiative for the success of Vietnam is changing Window Vista Office 2007 to a Vietnamese version. It used to take us four years to change the original version into Vietnamese, but in some recent projects, we only needed one year to do that work. The success story, we think, is the combination of the four mentioned initiatives. In the partnership programme, we would like to expand our plan. If VCCI agrees, VCCI and Microsoft will each arrange one person in charge so that they will have thorough discussion for a detailed and specific plan for this cooperation.
Recently, there have been a number of high ranking officers from Microsoft visiting Vietnam; is this a sign of more projects like Intel coming to Vietnam in the near future?
It is too early to announce today, but we see that Vietnam is a leading countries in terms of economic activities. And we hope to invest more in Vietnam.
How will Microsoft support Vietnam?
When I was 15 years old, I read about Vietnamese history, and I greatly admired the Vietnamese people. As Microsoft representatives, we wish to help Vietnam advance. We are by far one of the biggest investors in Vietnam. We will partner with VCCI and other institutions to enhance ICT awareness among the Vietnamese people.
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