Interview with Keynote Speaker Mr. Trung Dung
by Melody Nguyen, ISHCMC Conference Organizer
We went to the H3 Building, where the Next Giving organization headquarters are, to meet with Mr. Trung Dung, the organization’s founder and a renowned business software pioneer. Initially, the objective of the meeting was for both parties to be up-to-date on the conference’s program. However, after over forty-five minutes, our conversation covered more than just the logistics of the conference.
Mr Trung Dung suddenly said, “You know one of my childhood role models was Steve Jobs. I looked up to Steve Jobs very early in his career and I think he is the one who had the most ‘ups and downs’. We all learn of his successes from the MacBook, the iPads, and iPods, but, he faced more public failures than any other tech titans have. The fact is that even though he is one of the most successful innovators in the world, he still had to overcome so many of life’s challenges. This is an inspiration to me. From his example, you really do see that the journey to success is not smooth, it’s rocky, but it’s worth it.”
And that, dear reader was the way our interview began.
Mr. Dung, now that you mentioned tech titans, I am very curious about what you did in the United States. I’ve read that you generated some kind of program?
Well. Okay, in 1995, the Internet was suddenly widely used by the global population and for the first time, sharing information was very easy. The internet was real time, you can read, send, or put documents online at any time and the people from all around the world can access it. So, at that time, I came up with a hypothesis that more and more data will be uploaded and stored on the Internet. Based on that, I predicted that in the future, the computers would be the ones who put the information on the internet. Hence, with the prospect of a large database of information online, I thought that the computers should somehow automatically tabulate the internet’s information and allow the users to compare and contrast their products/ information on one page. So I, and a couple others came up with the technology to do this. Vignette Corporation then bought our application in 2000 for $1.8 billion. I guess that’s what people call a ‘big break’. (laughs)
After the “big break”, was that when you started to think about giving back to the community?
No. (pause) You see, giving back is something that I’d always enjoyed doing. It’s something I like doing outside of school. When I was nine years old, I had already manned fruit stands in the local markets for my mother since we were very poor. As I entered college, volunteering became a natural thing. I opened classrooms to teach Vietnamese to the kids in the States. During Tet, I would go to a temple and I could just help people carry tables, washing dishes, cooking food. I think that is fun.
So you had this great accomplishment in the United Sates. Why did you come back to Vietnam?
I actually never thought I’d come back to Vietnam. When I was small, my father worked for the former government. So when the revolution took place, he was put in a reeducation camp for over 13 years. Life in Vietnam then was very different from life in Vietnam now. In fact, what you read about North Korea was what Vietnam was like when I was a child. So, as you can see, it brought up bad memories. I went back to Vietnam in 2006. It wasn’t a personal trip, I was part of a US delegation that provides scholarships for a PhD degree for students in Vietnam. I had a lot of reservations initially. But then, when I landed and took a taxi to my hotel, I suddenly felt like I’m back at home. (smiles) I left for the US when I was only 18 years old, so I was integrated into the community. Only I didn’t know at the time that I was only professionally integrated, not socially or emotionally. I like this “being at home feeling” in Vietnam, so (laughs) I stayed.
What advice could you offer young people about achieving balance between community work and maintaining an income?
I’ve never had the need to think about balance. For me, I do it because I want to. If I go to the temple, I help. I want to do things that generate value. Value is the key word for me. It doesn’t matter if it’s commercial value or social value. I want to spend all my energy on doing the things that I believe in and only hope that it will create some kind of value in this world.
How did you start the Next Giving foundation? How did you develop the come up with the idea of micro giving technology?
Well, Chi Hao, one of my co-workers in the company, came to me with this idea of applying our technology to give back to the community, or to be more specific, to make giving easier for the person who is donating and for the organizations to receive the donations. We first created this application for the phone and then moved forward to putting it on Facebook. This is still an ongoing project, and I think the end product of this project would be very rewarding.
As a project leader myself, I know that sometimes it is very hard to get people to work for you. How do you do it?
I think it’s extremely important to sell your vision. When you talk to people who believe in what you believe they will follow you through the whole journey because it’s not just your vision they’re working forward to, it’s also theirs. Of course, there will always be umm… ‘elephant holes’ on the way, but you must persevere through all that obstacles. You must believe in yourself that you can achieve your vision, your dream. When you’ve convinced yourself, you’ll have convinced everyone else.
Thank you, Mr. Trung Dung for spending time with us for this interview. Would you like to say anything else to our GIN-ers?
Hmm… Well one of my other role model was Dr. Martin Luther King, (laughs), and there’s only one thing he said that I remember and that’s “I have a dream”. Everything starts with a dream. You might be thinking you want to do something, but you don’t know how, and yes it’s going to be difficult to figure out how to do it. It will be difficult turn that plan into reality. And you might be thinking where do I start? Well, it starts with a dream.
by Melody Nguyen, ISHCMC Conference Organizer
We went to the H3 Building, where the Next Giving organization headquarters are, to meet with Mr. Trung Dung, the organization’s founder and a renowned business software pioneer. Initially, the objective of the meeting was for both parties to be up-to-date on the conference’s program. However, after over forty-five minutes, our conversation covered more than just the logistics of the conference.
Mr Trung Dung suddenly said, “You know one of my childhood role models was Steve Jobs. I looked up to Steve Jobs very early in his career and I think he is the one who had the most ‘ups and downs’. We all learn of his successes from the MacBook, the iPads, and iPods, but, he faced more public failures than any other tech titans have. The fact is that even though he is one of the most successful innovators in the world, he still had to overcome so many of life’s challenges. This is an inspiration to me. From his example, you really do see that the journey to success is not smooth, it’s rocky, but it’s worth it.”
And that, dear reader was the way our interview began.
Mr. Dung, now that you mentioned tech titans, I am very curious about what you did in the United States. I’ve read that you generated some kind of program?
Well. Okay, in 1995, the Internet was suddenly widely used by the global population and for the first time, sharing information was very easy. The internet was real time, you can read, send, or put documents online at any time and the people from all around the world can access it. So, at that time, I came up with a hypothesis that more and more data will be uploaded and stored on the Internet. Based on that, I predicted that in the future, the computers would be the ones who put the information on the internet. Hence, with the prospect of a large database of information online, I thought that the computers should somehow automatically tabulate the internet’s information and allow the users to compare and contrast their products/ information on one page. So I, and a couple others came up with the technology to do this. Vignette Corporation then bought our application in 2000 for $1.8 billion. I guess that’s what people call a ‘big break’. (laughs)
After the “big break”, was that when you started to think about giving back to the community?
No. (pause) You see, giving back is something that I’d always enjoyed doing. It’s something I like doing outside of school. When I was nine years old, I had already manned fruit stands in the local markets for my mother since we were very poor. As I entered college, volunteering became a natural thing. I opened classrooms to teach Vietnamese to the kids in the States. During Tet, I would go to a temple and I could just help people carry tables, washing dishes, cooking food. I think that is fun.
So you had this great accomplishment in the United Sates. Why did you come back to Vietnam?
I actually never thought I’d come back to Vietnam. When I was small, my father worked for the former government. So when the revolution took place, he was put in a reeducation camp for over 13 years. Life in Vietnam then was very different from life in Vietnam now. In fact, what you read about North Korea was what Vietnam was like when I was a child. So, as you can see, it brought up bad memories. I went back to Vietnam in 2006. It wasn’t a personal trip, I was part of a US delegation that provides scholarships for a PhD degree for students in Vietnam. I had a lot of reservations initially. But then, when I landed and took a taxi to my hotel, I suddenly felt like I’m back at home. (smiles) I left for the US when I was only 18 years old, so I was integrated into the community. Only I didn’t know at the time that I was only professionally integrated, not socially or emotionally. I like this “being at home feeling” in Vietnam, so (laughs) I stayed.
What advice could you offer young people about achieving balance between community work and maintaining an income?
I’ve never had the need to think about balance. For me, I do it because I want to. If I go to the temple, I help. I want to do things that generate value. Value is the key word for me. It doesn’t matter if it’s commercial value or social value. I want to spend all my energy on doing the things that I believe in and only hope that it will create some kind of value in this world.
How did you start the Next Giving foundation? How did you develop the come up with the idea of micro giving technology?
Well, Chi Hao, one of my co-workers in the company, came to me with this idea of applying our technology to give back to the community, or to be more specific, to make giving easier for the person who is donating and for the organizations to receive the donations. We first created this application for the phone and then moved forward to putting it on Facebook. This is still an ongoing project, and I think the end product of this project would be very rewarding.
As a project leader myself, I know that sometimes it is very hard to get people to work for you. How do you do it?
I think it’s extremely important to sell your vision. When you talk to people who believe in what you believe they will follow you through the whole journey because it’s not just your vision they’re working forward to, it’s also theirs. Of course, there will always be umm… ‘elephant holes’ on the way, but you must persevere through all that obstacles. You must believe in yourself that you can achieve your vision, your dream. When you’ve convinced yourself, you’ll have convinced everyone else.
Thank you, Mr. Trung Dung for spending time with us for this interview. Would you like to say anything else to our GIN-ers?
Hmm… Well one of my other role model was Dr. Martin Luther King, (laughs), and there’s only one thing he said that I remember and that’s “I have a dream”. Everything starts with a dream. You might be thinking you want to do something, but you don’t know how, and yes it’s going to be difficult to figure out how to do it. It will be difficult turn that plan into reality. And you might be thinking where do I start? Well, it starts with a dream.