On July 26, 2021, Singapore Polytechnic School (SP School) sent an invitation letter to Hanoi University of Civil Engineering to participate in a short-term course on thinking skills, held in an online form in 2021, due to the influence of the COVID 19 pandemic. The course was sponsored by the Temasek Foundation – Specialists' Community Action and Leadership Exchange of Singapore, hereinafter referred to as the TF SCALE Course. The short-term TF SCALE course lasted 11 days and it was divided into 3 parts from 9/2021 to 3/2022. The purpose of the course was practising problem-solving thinking skills, with the participation of 150 lecturers and students from 4 countries: Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam.

Members of the course

The lecturers of SP School – Singapore

Group representatives participated in supporting the course

Within the 3-day period of Part 01 of the Course, the students were divided into many groups; they made friends and exchanged cultures, listened to lectures and information about ASEAN, countries, design thinking, explored business and management thinking... with the participation of speakers who were representatives of schools and organizations: Singapore Polytechnic School, Hanoi University of Civil Engineering, BINUS University (Indonesia) ), Bulacan State University (Philippines), the Representative of Bosch Group, Phu Long Company of Sovico Group. At the end of three useful days, with many positive emotions, the students had many happy memories, exchanged, connected and understood more about one another. The student group of Hanoi University of Civil Engineering had the task of working with Singaporean friends to find out and propose solutions to help Sovico Group develop tourism in response to the pandemic.

Pictures from Part 1 about exchange and introduction of Asian countries, introduction of project information.

Part 2 of the Course (October 13-15, 2021) related to the results of in-depth interviews with customers, ideation and presentation of ideas to Phu Long Company under Sovico Group. Students from Hanoi University of Civil Engineering had weekly meetings with Singapore Polytechnic students to implement assigned projects. They have mastered the principles, processes, and tools of Design Thinking; applied the Design Thinking framework as a structured process to propose solutions; explained detailed information from customer interviews and thereby proposed new value to the company. Their ideas were highly appreciated by the company, in addition, the company also gave suggestions to make the ideas better and more practical.
Part 3 of the course took place over 5 days (March 7-11, 2022). This was the stage of finalizing the product and presenting to Phu Long Company for the last time. In this section, students needed to apply digital marketing tools to boost innovation, and to advertise business ideas for Phu Long company. The instructors as well as partners from Sovico Group were quite interested in the final product / solution of the Vietnamese and Singaporean students.

Groups of students from different countries presented solutions in Part 3

The best thing about the students of Hanoi University of Civil Engineering is not only the ability to actively think and find solutions, but also the skills to use interviewing, reporting and evaluation software such as Padlet, VEED.IO, Animaker, Classkick, Pocket, Prezi, Mentoring…Especially confidence!!! They have confidently expressed themselves to international friends and they have confidently spoken English.

Awards for groups with excellent solutions – Certificate of participation in the Course

Hanoi University of Civil Engineering would like to congratulate 23 students who completed the course and deserved to receive the Certificate, which is highly appreciated by enterprises, as well as being recognized for credits for equivalent subjects!
Once again, Hanoi University of Civil Engineering sincerely thanks Temasek Foundation, Singapore Technique School for giving students of the University the opportunity to express themselves; HUCE thanks the lecturers and staff of the two schools who participated in supporting the course.

Student comments:

“I am honored to be a part of the TF SCALE international short-term course which is an amazing program, and I had a great experience. After six months of participating in TF SCALE, I have gained a lot of knowledge, including design methodological thinking, exposure to ASEAN industry, deep understanding of ASEAN people as well as immersing and understanding another ASEAN culture. During the program, I had the opportunity to participate in and research a project called Travel Confidence with team B2, to study how COVID 19 has affected ASEAN passengers and business opportunities; and at the same time, we offered solutions and goods for Phu Long company, belonging to Sovico Group. I can't believe that my team won an award. It means a lot to me. For this honor, I would like to thank Harry Pham, who has supported and contributed ideas to our team throughout the program, as well as all the team members who have tried to set aside a weekend meeting every month to come up with project ideas. In addition, I am a shy person who does not like to talk to strangers. However, after enrolling in the program, I am confident in speaking English, making new friends, learning how to work in a team and improving my time management skill. I hope to travel to Singapore someday in the future,” shared Ho Thi Ha Dung, K62 KTE.

Faculty of International Education - HUCE