Attending the event were Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, leaders of central and local departments, ministries and sectors; prestigious organizations, corporations, individuals and networks – supporters of domestic and international innovative startups.

VNU President Le Quan and VNU Vice President Pham Bao Son attended the event.

Addressing the event, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh hailed the achievements in solving practical challenges - an objective requirement for development. He said that innovation must adhere to the Party's policy, contribute to making everyone happy, protect sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as to demonstrate the intelligence and creativity of the Vietnamese people. The Prime Minister emphasized that innovation efforts would create changes in all fields of the country to fight against the epidemic, recover and develop the economy as well as innovate health care, education, agriculture, etc.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh expressed his pride in Vietnam's Innovation Ecosystem with enthusiastic actors. He hoped that Vietnam would soon attain more achievements in 2022

The Minister of Science and Technology Huynh Thanh Dat said that the national Techfest was organized to summarize, evaluate and report to the Government leadership on innovative startup activities nationwide. He said that, in 2021, despite the complicated situation of the epidemic, the financial sources for creative startups in Vietnam and the participation of the actors increased incredibly. The typical feature of Vietnam's innovation ecosystem is the formation of interconnected networks for promoting the flow of knowledge and technology nationally and internationally to effectively connect with the existing ecosystems in the region and around the world. He expected that, in the new normal context, initiatives, solutions, innovative projects and creative startups would demonstrate their pioneer role in solving socio-economic problems.

VNU President Le Quan witnessed the signing of cooperation agreements between NATEC and several major corporations and groups

Techfest Vietnam 2021 is held with the theme “Embracing Innovation - Reshaping the Future. In 2021, the Covid-19 pandemic continues to be extremely complicated, which makes the startup path even more challenging. Innovating and changing the way of living, working and interacting is no longer an option, but has become a must. This year’s TECHFEST aims to promote technology solutions of innovative startups - an "open" innovation platform for solving society's problems in the context of the Covid-19 epidemic and post-COVID economic recovery. It is time startups seized new opportunities to rise up, to "shape the future" through technology initiatives. At the same time, using intellectual power and innovation as a driving force to advance with the strength of national unity.

Attending the event as a speaker, VNU Vice President Pham Bao Son presented views from the perspective of a scientific research institution and a center of higher education. He emphasized the need of open access, open data for everyone to exploit information on scientific results. In addition, he suggested that universities and research institutes set up spinoffs for scientists to use as a driving force for their research. He also suggested businesses using their science and technology development fund to connect with scientists.

VNU Vice President Pham Bao Son believes that there are two approaches to innovation. The external innovation approach means that businesses look for solutions, ideas from the community to solve their problems, whereas the internal innovation approach means that businesses share their resource solution ideas with the community.