{"id":7014,"date":"2016-09-14T06:55:08","date_gmt":"2016-09-13T23:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yup.edu.vn\/?p=7014"},"modified":"2026-10-01T01:22:47","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T18:22:47","slug":"khoi-nghiep-bang-ung-dung-hoc-tieng-anh-su-dung-tri-tue-nhan-tao","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yup.edu.vn\/en\/khoi-nghiep-bang-ung-dung-hoc-tieng-anh-su-dung-tri-tue-nhan-tao\/","title":{"rendered":"Starting a business with an AI-powered English-learning app"},"content":{"rendered":"

Featured prominently in Tu\u1ed5i Tr\u1ebb newspaper 10 years ago, V\u0103n \u0110inh H\u1ed3ng V\u0169 once shared her dream of becoming a Vietnamese ambassador. This ambition was entirely within reach for the talented Foreign Trade student proficient in 3 foreign languages. Barely into her 20s, V\u0169 confidently represented Vietnamese youth across 10 countries, attending summits on global education and career guidance.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"van-dinh-hong-vu\"<\/a><\/p>\n

V\u0103n \u0110inh H\u1ed3ng V\u0169<\/span><\/p>\n

Those trips gradually replaced V\u0169\u2019s dream of becoming an ambassador with a desire to improve education. After graduation, her life became a 10-year career-building journey from Denmark to the USA, through 2 master\u2019s scholarships in Business Administration and Education at Stanford University. Now based in Silicon Valley, V\u0169 is a social entrepreneur in education. In early 2011, she founded Vietseeds to provide university scholarships for disadvantaged Vietnamese students. Most recently, in 2014, she co-founded the speech recognition app ELSA, helping language learners worldwide pronounce words as close as possible to native speech.<\/span><\/p>\n

Few also know that, to pursue her passion, V\u0103n \u0110inh H\u1ed3ng V\u0169 gave up enviable roles at leading global corporations 2 times. During 3 years of professional development in Denmark, she became the first Asian assistant to the CEO of Maersk, a transport and energy group with branches in 136 countries and 89,000 employees. She later left her senior project leader role at Booz & Company, 1 of America\u2019s 4 leading consulting groups. Without regret, V\u0169 said: \u201cI have accumulated enough management knowledge and talented people over the past 10 years. It is time for me to begin doing what I want in technology and education.\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Teaching Speaking with Elsa Technology<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

ELSA (English Language Speech Assistant) is tied to V\u0169's memory of first attending a student conference in Germany in 2002. Before arriving, V\u0169 had no doubts about her English ability. Strangely, no one in India understood what she said. \u201cThat very night, an American friend told me he would withdraw from the presentation the following morning. I was the only person representing Vietnam; it would have been terribly embarrassing if no one could understand me\u2026\u201d<\/i>, V\u0169 recalled.<\/span><\/p>\n

But her friend would not let V\u0169 give up. He sat with her all night, repeatedly reading every sentence of her presentation so she could imitate his emphasis and pronunciation. V\u0169 regained confidence, but from then on she kept thinking about the gap in pronunciation teaching.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou do not realize how important pronunciation is until you live and work abroad,\u201d V\u0169 explained. During nearly 10 years away from home, she saw many talented international students fail to rise to leadership positions in corporations simply because their pronunciation did not sound native. That seemingly minor issue became a major barrier to communication and career advancement, especially in fields requiring strong communication skills, such as consulting or law.<\/span><\/p>\n

So from 2013, V\u0169 invited speech therapists to develop content for ELSA. Their lessons cost 200 USD per hour and reach very limited numbers of students, while the completed ELSA app will be affordably priced and accessible to many people in every country.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018On the technology side, ELSA is programmed to emulate the teaching methods of America's leading speaking coaches,\u2019 V\u0169 added. ELSA has a team of engineers and experts in the United States designing state-of-the-art speech-recognition technology. As a result, ELSA not only identifies a speaker's pronunciation errors accurately but also helps improve each sound through practice. Within just a few days of launching the product trial campaign, all 1,000 available trial places had been filled, with thousands more people waiting.<\/span><\/p>\n

Invest deeply to change your life<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Before venturing into entrepreneurship with ELSA, V\u0103n \u0110inh H\u1ed3ng V\u0169 was a very active social campaigner. Although her Vietseeds Fund began operating in 2011, the idea appeared in 2008 in an essay for her MBA course at Stanford University. From earlier conference trips, she realized that money can help people briefly, but education can change a life. The essay therefore became a detailed plan combining money and education in philanthropy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Essentially, Vietseeds raises money to help disadvantaged Vietnamese students attend university. Going beyond fundraising, V\u0169 has developed this model into an incubator for future leaders. \u201cIn addition to 1,000 USD\/year for tuition and living expenses throughout 4 years of university, benefactors and volunteers organize additional training in soft skills such as document writing, teamwork, foreign languages, and career planning, helping students overcome feelings of inferiority and confidently take the lead when working in the city,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

To date, Vietseeds has raised a substantial amount from 100 domestic and international sponsors. However, the scholarship amount remains unchanged from the beginning at USD 1,000\/year. Thus, in 2014, only 100 students received support. Speaking candidly and firmly, V\u0169 explained: \u201cYes, I could divide USD 1,000 among 5 students instead of 1. But although smaller amounts help more students, they do so only briefly. I commit to investing deeply to transform each student\u2019s life completely.\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

After 5 years of operation, the first 10 students to graduate from university with Vietseeds\u2019 support had secured their dream jobs, and one had completed a master\u2019s degree in the USA. All donations go to students; operating expenses and skills training classes are largely funded by the 2 founders, V\u0103n \u0110inh H\u1ed3ng V\u0169 and V\u0169 Duy Th\u1ee9c, who holds a PhD in Information Technology from Stanford University.<\/span><\/p>\n

From \u2018Ambassador\u2019 to \u2018Social Activist \u2013entrepreneurship<\/a>\u201d initially seem like 2 entirely different paths. For V\u0169, however, both 2 belong to one continuous journey. \u201cBoth then and now, I have wanted to do something for my homeland. To contribute more than the voice of my youth, I moved into the economic and social dimensions of education. This way, I can contribute more practical value to education,\u201d<\/i> she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Collected<\/span><\/p>\n

>> Great Articles on Entrepreneurship<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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>> Business Consulting Program<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Ch\u01b0\u01a1ng tr\u00ecnh li\u00ean quan t\u1ea1i YUP Education:<\/strong> X-Startup \u2013 kh\u00f3a h\u1ecdc kh\u1edfi nghi\u1ec7p \u00abKh\u1edfi Ch\u00e1nh Nghi\u1ec7p\u00bb<\/a> \u00b7 The Journey \u2013 l\u1ed9 tr\u00ecnh ph\u00e1t tri\u1ec3n doanh nh\u00e2n<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

L\u00e0 g\u01b0\u01a1ng m\u1eb7t n\u1ed5i b\u1eadt c\u1ee7a b\u00e1o Tu\u1ed5i Tr\u1ebb 10 n\u0103m tr\u01b0\u1edbc, V\u0103n \u0110inh H\u1ed3ng V\u0169 t\u1eebng chia s\u1ebb m\u01a1 \u01b0\u1edbc tr\u1edf th\u00e0nh \u0111\u1ea1i s\u1ee9 c\u1ee7a Vi\u1ec7t Nam. Tham v\u1ecdng \u1ea5y ho\u00e0n to\u00e0n trong t\u1ea7m tay c\u1ee7a c\u00f4 sinh vi\u00ean Ngo\u1ea1i th\u01b0\u01a1ng \u0111a t\u00e0i v\u00e0 gi\u1ecfi 3 ngo\u1ea1i ng\u1eef. M\u1edbi ngo\u00e0i 20 tu\u1ed5i, V\u0169 \u0111\u00e3 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[134],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yup.edu.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yup.edu.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yup.edu.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yup.edu.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yup.edu.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7014"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/yup.edu.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18134,"href":"https:\/\/yup.edu.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7014\/revisions\/18134"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yup.edu.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yup.edu.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yup.edu.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yup.edu.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}