The Third Viet-Tech International Conference VTIC2000 San Jose State University, California, USA August 4 - 5, 2000 E-mail: [email protected] https://www.vacets.org/vtic00/vtic00.htm Organized by VACETS in Collaboration with VESA The Vietnamese Engineering Student Association at San Jose State University

At the Conference Dinner banquet on August 4, 2000

University Dining Room, San Jose State University

Good evening, everybody.

First, I want to thank Dr. Thuy T. Le, VTIC2000 general chair, Dr. Trung V. Nguyen, technical program chair, and VTIC2000 organizing committee for working so hard to make this conference possible. I also want to thank Mr. Mang Dinh, Local Chapter Bay Area and Vietnamese students at SJSU for helping make VTIC2000 a success.

Tonight I like to share with you "My Journey with VACETS and My Fate with Local Chapter Bay Area."

In 1994, some friends of my introduced me to VACETS. Shortly after becoming VACETS member, I has joined AdCom and stayed in Adcom ever since. I am not VACETS founder. One of VACETS co-founders happens to be here tonight, Dr. Hai Tran. Please feel free to ask him about the birth of VACETS and its mission. By the end of 1994, I had opportunity to visit Local Chapter Washington D.C. In a few meetings, we realized that VACETS as a technical organization needed a technical magazine and AdCom charged me to be the Editor-in-Chief and publisher. We started sending out call for papers. The response from VACETS members was overwhelming. Everything went smoothly as planned. In February 1996, we published the first VACETS technical magazine right on time to celebrate our Tet. The following year, Dr. Tien M. Nguyen took over the job as Editor-in-Chief and I continued to be publisher. After taking a closer look at both contents and format that well met the standard, we decided to change it to Technical Journal. In spring 1997, the second issue of Technical Journal was published.

Back in 1995, when VACETS conducted the first election of Board of Directors on cyberspace, I ran and was elected as member. The first BOD members were: Dr. Tran Thong, president, Dr. Viet-Dung Hoang, president-elect, Dr. Binh Anson, Mr. Thao Le, Mr. Tin Le, Ms. Bich Tran, and James Lap. In that summer, three of us, Dr. Viet-Dung Hoang, Mr. Thao and I, went on vacation together in North Carolina. We met almost days and nights and realized that Technical magazine (at that time) was good but not enough. VACETS needed to have International Conference for professionals to meet face to face and help each other. Fortunately, Mr. Diem V. Nguyen and Dr. Tien M. Nguyen accepted to be general co-chairs, Dr. Thinh Dinh Ngo and Dr. Tue Nguyen co-chairs of technical program, Dr. Hung M. Nguyen Public Relations chair of VTIC’96, and I am responsible for publishing VTIC proceedings. The response from VACETS members to call for papers and conference participation was beyond our expectation. In July 1996, VTIC’96 was held at George Mason University, Washington D.C. To name just a few well known conference participants: Dr. Vinh X. Nguyen, Dr. Thinh D. Ngo, Dr. Tue Nguyen, Dr. Hung Nguyen, Dr. Thuy T. Le, Dr. Tri Caohuu, Dr. Tien M. Nguyen, Dr. Vuong G. Tong, Dr. Tung Bui, Dr. Charles Cuong Nguyen, etc. With the overwhelming success, we decided to make VTIC an important annual activity of VACETS. The following year, Dr. Tri Caohuu volunteered to be VTIC general chair, Dr. Tran Thong and Dr. Thuy T. Le co-chair of technical program, Mr. Chu Bui (Local chapter Bay Area member) and I co-chairs of proceedings publication. I think you remember well that VTIC’97 happened right in this very SJSU campus in July 1997. Another successful VTIC! Due to schedule conflict I could not attend VTIC’97 as planned. And as you see, three years later, fate brought me here in the same campus to meet all members of Local Chapter Bay Area with VTIC2000. Now we all know that VACETS is a product of hard work and contribution of many professionals. It belongs to all of us, a technical community.

On the way to conference every day I noticed a banner in the corner stating: "This is your future. Do not leave it blank." with a Vietnamese translation below: "DDa^y la` tu+o+ng lai cua? ba.n. Xin ddu+`ng bo? tro^’ng." I like to borrow it to express idea in VACETS’ context as follows: "VACETS is your future. Do not leave it blank." with the following Vietnamese translation: "VACETS la` tu+o+ng lai cua? ba.n. Xin ddu+`ng hoang phi’."

Pha.m Quy`nh, a famous Vietnamese writer, once said: "Tie^’ng Vie^.t co`n, nu+o+’c ta co`n." (Whenever the Vietnamese language lasts, Vietnam still exists." May I borrow the idea for VTIC and VACETS context. "VTIC co`n, VACETS se~ co`n ma~i" (Whenever VTIC lasts, VACETS continues to exist).

Dear friends,

Now you might ask: "Ok, we know VACETS is five years old with two technical journals and three VTICs. Then what is next?" To be honest, I don’t know. But I know somebody who has the answer, somebody who has a vision for VACETS, somebody who has a plan for VACETS future. He is president-elect. Dear friends, I have a great pleasure to introduce to you VACETS next president, Dr. Tri Caohuu.