VTIC2000
San Jose State University, California, USA
August 4 - 5, 2000
E-mail: [email protected]
https://www.vacets.org/vtic00/vtic00.htm
The Vietnamese Engineering Student Association at San Jose State University
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VTIC2000 San Jose State University, California, USA August 4 - 5, 2000 E-mail: [email protected] https://www.vacets.org/vtic00/vtic00.htm
The Vietnamese Engineering Student Association at San Jose State University |
Speech of the President Elect of VACETS
At the Conference Dinner banquet on August 4, 2000
University Dining Room, San Jose State University
[Edited and simplified for posting]
Good evening
Distinguished Guests, Students, Friends and VACETS members,
It is my pleasure to be here with you to night. We had a very successful day today, I hope we all enjoyed it and look forward to tomorrow sections. I understand that we will have a special presentation and many interesting panels and workshops. I am supposed to share with you some thoughts on the challenge ahead for VACETS. However, before saying anything I would like to thank Anh Thuy Le and Anh Mang Dinh and all the members of the organizing committee for their diligent effort that makes VTIC'2000 possible. I also would like to recognize my lovely wife Mylien who is sitting just right there.
Starting in 94 VACETS was founded with the goal of fostering professional relationship and providing a forum for engineering and scientists to exchange idea and knowledge. After of a lot up down, frustration at some times, misunderstood at some other times, we should all pat our-self in the back: we still around, and growing stronger. Being professional association in a quickly changing world is difficult, being a Vietnamese professional association is even harder. And we all understand why? And in the context of technology, education, training, and business, the information technology revolution, if I may say so, makes the role of VACETS more complex and multi-dimensional. On top of this, being bonded by our Vietnamese origin and culture, VACETS have an additional role to play.
First of all, VACETS is an embodiment of academia, students and professionals in industry. In stead of locking our-self in the area of research and development, we have this tie bonding between students, faculty, engineers and scientist, and the entrepreneur; between the academia environments and the very competitive industry. The networking is a very important aspect, which fosters the synergy required to be successful in today competitive technology arena.
Second, look around you, we see many seasoned professionals and also very young students, the would-be professional in a few years. We emphasis on the important participation of our younger members to make this association more vibrant. VACETS have an important role to play as a bridge through which knowledge, experience will be shared and learned.
And last of all, but not least, is the bonding that we have being Vietnamese. A bonding that comes with joy and sorrow, a legacy that is telling us some day some how we will do something for the betterment of Vietnam. That some day some how is now awfully close. With advancement of IT and the late bilateral agreement on trades, the Internet, the E-commerce, I am sure that VACETS will have a leading role to play toward the reconstruction of VN when time is right. In past century there are three major revolutions: the industry revolution, the IC revolution and the IT revolution. Missing out on any of these revolutions would set back a country some where between 25 to 50 years. VN missed two revolutions already, can it afford to be missed out on the third one?
To fulfill those stated roles VACETS has a lot to do. Within the framework of my calendar as president I will try to do these following things:
1. Promote and consolidate membership. We may want to establish some sort of membership fee.
2. We will improve the quality and quantity of the our Technical Journal and Forums
3. Focus on making strong Local Chapters, with meaning full and enjoyable activities
4. Open new Chapters (Florida, Germany)
5. Inviting all other VN technical association to co-organized VTIC'20001. V stands for Vietnamese not just for VACETS. And also hopefully we will get much more support for industry. This year, among the corporations we have the support of Fujitsu, Omely.com, Compaq, Cisco, MicroLambda, StartDay1, perhaps next year we can add to the list IBM, SUN, Microsoft, Applied Materials …
6. We will have fun doing all of the above.
Words is cheap, action is much harder.
I hope we, all, can pull together to maintain and strengthen VACETS as a distinguished professional association. A truly professional association that can help each of us fulfilling our individual goal, at the same time, providing the networking and support for others, particularly the younger generation, in their quest for a successful career and professional developments.
Let me quote a line of poem from the most celebrated author in Vietnamese Classic, the poet Nguyen Du in Kieu: "Chu Tam Kia Moi Bang Ba Chu Tai" A rough translation:" The Heart (or rather the Spirit) is worth three time more than the Talent". Talents, I know we have, there is no doubt that most of us here are quite talented. What about the heart? Do we have the spirit to build VACETS as a distinguished professional organization that we all will be proud to be associated with?
TC