Becoming a member of World Technopolis Association will open up great opportunities for Binh Duong

Recently, President of World Technopolis Association (WTA) has conferred membership certificate upon Binh Duong province in Daejeon (South Korea). On this occasion, Binh Duong Newspaper had an interview with Tran Thanh Liem, Deputy Secretary of Binh Duong Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of Provincial People's Committee.

- Could you give us an overview of WTA? Binh Duong province and Daejeon city (Korea) have recently signed an important cooperation agreement to develop Binh Duong Smart City project, could you please tell us more about this cooperation?

- World Technopolis Association (WTA) is a multilateral international organization, was established in 1998, with the goal of linking scientific and technological advances to support the development of less-developed regions; promoting bilateral and multilateral development, promoting and activating regional economic development through exchanges and cooperation between scientific cities as well as contributing to the common prosperity of humanity through advances in science and technology, turning towards the development of sustainable scientific cities and the governance of scientific cities in a global context. WTA currently has 106 members from 48 countries and territories around the world. WTA has been implementing collaborative projects between UNESCO and WTA aiming at the development of sustainable scientific cities and the governance of scientific cities in global context.

WTA Chairman Her Tae Jeong (right) hands over membership certificate to Tran Thanh Liem, Deputy Secretary of Binh Duong Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of Provincial People's Committee.

In order to join WTA, Daejeon city twinned with Binh Duong province supported and introduced the province to the WTA. In fact, in the latest 13 years, Binh Duong and Daejeon signed a number of cooperation programs in fields of health, education, culture and society, and promoted the investment of Korean enterprises in Binh Duong province.

In recent years, Binh Duong has made long strides in socio-economic breakthrough and smart city development based on “Triple Helix” model. This trend is being supported by international friends and partners. From this foundation, Binh Duong-Daejeon relationship took a new step, with cooperation in scientific-technological research, expert exchange, and strategic economic cooperation. Since then, Daejeon city has introduced and accompanied Binh Duong during the province’s accession to WTA, as well as supported Binh Duong in hosting the upcoming WTA 2018 Summit.

- In Korea, WTA Chairman officially granted membership certificate to Binh Duong. What does this mean to Binh Duong, especially while Binh Duong is building a smart city?

- WTA and its members pursue the same core values as well as general models of socio-economic growth, especially "Triple Helix" model turning towards smart cities, which is very similar to Binh Duong province. Therefore, the breakthrough achievements of Binh Duong in smart city development and creative innovation have interested WTA. During the visit of Binh Duong province’s delegation to Daejeon, on 16 Aug 2018, Her Tae Jeong, New Daejeon City Mayor and Chairman of WTA, officially conferred membership certificate upon Binh Duong province.

This event is an important, breakthrough event to Binh Duong. WTA membership will open a great opportunity for Binh Duong to boom in terms of international cooperation, advertise its brand name, and attract foreign investments into the province. In particular, this will be the foundation for Binh Duong to boost exchanges with scientific cities around the world, exchange of human resources, management capacity, scientific-technical level, advanced technological transfer, share development strategies to make a great contribution to the comprehensive socio-economic development program of Binh Duong province, which is aiming at becoming a smart, dynamic and creative city with a service economy and high-tech production.

- Binh Duong as the host of WTA 2018 Summit on occasion of WTA’s 20th anniversary, is a new position of Binh Duong province in the international arena. Could you please explain more about the scale of this meaningful activity?

- The 2018 WTA Summit held in Binh Duong is a very special event to both WTA and Binh Duong province. WTA will celebrate its 20th anniversary in this year, mark the success and reputation of this organization in the world, and will set a new vision for WTA activities in the next decade, establish a global platform for exchanges and cooperation in science and technology among members.

Being a member of WTA will open a great opportunity for Binh Duong to boom in international cooperation, promote its brand name, and attract more foreign investments into the province. In photo: A corner of Binh Duong New City.

On our side, being selected to be the host of this event will strengthen our international status, right after being officially admitted to WTA. Binh Duong will welcome UNESCO leaders and more than 100 WTA representatives, who are mayors, presidents of universities institutes, business leaders from more than 50 countries and territories around the world. At the conference, the parties will discuss, exchange, share experiences and visions on governance and sustainable development of science and technology cities in the world, with the main theme "Smart city intelligent as a driving force for innovation and sustainable development", thus making important connections in the globalization process.

The 2018 WTA Summit will take place with various sessions, mayors' meetings, meetings between university leaders, research institutes, and WTA members, in which the highlight will be the global innovation forum co-hosted by UNESCO, WTA, Daejeon and Binh Duong. Besides, the summit also has hi-tech fairs for science and technology enterprises around the world, and Smart City Initiative contest at both Vietnam and South Korea.

- Thank you Sir!

Reported by Phuong Le – Translated by Ngoc Huynh