We speak to Phan Thao Nguyen, Deputy Chief Information Officer at Vietnam Posts & Telecommunications Group (VNPT), which won the ‘Changing Lives Award’ at this year’s Broadband InfoVision Awards for its Broadband Garden project.

Can you tell us a little more about your entry?

Our Broadband Garden project seeks to bring broadband services to the country’s rural areas, where 70% of the population live. The company has committed US$10mn worth of investment to the project, and particularly hopes to give young people in rural areas the chance to use broadband services to access education, networking and other information services.

The project involves the delivery of broadband services to communal post offices, each of which is provided with four computers and other equipment including webcams and a printer. VNPT has also committed itself to training key people in the community and offering training sessions for the local population with these key people on designated days. So far, over 2,000 broadband-equipped centres have been created across the country and over 1mn people have been provided with basic IT skills.

Why do you think the judges selected your entry for this award?

It is simply because we are approaching the right track, and that matches with the criteria of the award. It comes naturally because all what we have done derive from VNPT’s business strategy and will be strictly maintained in coming years.

That is for a sustainable development and over all for a real life for everyone. Moreover, perhaps that is the second year successively participated the awards, so we have more experience in showing vital evidences of the project, making it more logical and, therefore, more persuasive.

How does being named for this award benefit your business?

Winning this award will be a great encouragement to further develop community broadband projects. It also improves VNPT’s image and commitment to continual contributions to the community, changing lives for poor people in remote areas of Vietnam.

Furthermore, this opportunity will upgrade the awareness of our whole society about the social contribution of VNPT, and thereby facilitate VNPT’s business.

This year’s Broadband InfoVision Awards were announced during a gala dinner held aboard a river cruise in Paris on September 27th, 2011. For a complete list of winners, please click here