Master Nguyen Hong Ngan an official of the World Bank’s communication and public relations division told the online newspaper VietNamNet that innovation potentials of the Vietnamese people are great and practical. Once you see problems the community is facing solutions are expected to be found. Launched in 2003, themes of Vietnam Innovation Day (VID) are broad, and normally to choose one theme for a year we [World Bank] have base on public opinions, have consultations with non-government organizations, prize-winning groups and refer to experience in other countries, Ngan said. For this year we have had discussions with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and known the climate change is a top priority of Vietnam now, Ngan added. In July 2009 we started collecting opinions about for this year’s theme and we picked up “climate change” topic briefly after COP 15 - the 15th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was held in Copenhagen in December 2009, Ngan explained. Right after announcing the VID2010 themed “climate change,” on Jan 5, we have held four contests at libraries in Can Tho, Ho Chi Minh City, Hue and Haiphong with the participation of university students and since then we have received 261 projects across the country and the event’s jury has short-listed 61 of which for the final round, he said.
