The Vietnamese National Museum of History has introduced several new virtual shows to attract visitors, maintaining social distancing protocols amid the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the museum’s director, it has applied digital technology in preserving and promoting cultural heritage for many years. It had intended to build a digital database for Vietnamese cultural heritage (E-Heritage) and has obtained positive results.
As per a news report, one of the latest shows is a 3D virtual interactive display of national treasures, which the museum developed in collaboration with a private tech player. Additionally, the National Museum of History Volunteer Club has researched and built an online tour of the museum to meet the needs of visitors during the new normal. The online tour, held on 12 September, was a combination of narration with various digital technologies that helped bring new perspectives and experiences. It attracted nearly 100 participants.
In particular, the museum’s History Classroom programme and the History Lover’s Club are being gradually converted to an online form, via the Zoom application. Till now, the museum has organised hundreds of free history classes for more than 5,000 students, including Vietnamese children living abroad. Based on the experience and success of these programmes, the director affirmed that in the coming time, the museum will continue to design more shows using digital technology to meet the growing demand of the public.
Earlier this month, OpenGov Asia reported that Vietnam will need to do more if it wants to become a digital powerhouse as envisioned in the socio-economic development strategy adopted by the Party in February 2021. A biannual update on Vietnam’s economic performance showed that the country needs to ensure the development of a digitally skilled labour force, the emergence of a dynamic and agile local private sector, and good but secure access to information.
Vietnam aims to be among the top 50 countries in the ICT Development Index as early as 2025, and its digital economy is hoped to account for one-third of the country’s GDP by the end of the decade, instead of only 5%. Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the country has witnessed a great change in the application of new digitisation tools in both the private and public sectors. It is estimated that in June 2021, about two-thirds of private enterprises in Vietnam had access to technologies related to the digital economy. This is a huge leap from the pre-COVID-19 period.
However, Vietnam still has a lot of work to do. In addition to upgrading infrastructure, the country needs to encourage the application of digital technology and attract investment to create conditions for small businesses to participate in the digital economy. Vietnam also needs to upgrade digital technology infrastructures and equip workers with digital skills to help them become more dynamic in adapting to new technologies. In the short term, Vietnam can take advantage of the presence of many famous technology enterprises to learn and improve digital skills for local labourers working for these corporations. The government must issue a series of initiatives to attract talents from expatriates working in digital technology fields around the world.
