Today was heavy on-site visits, as we were able to check out both Coherent (a publicly traded optics and materials company) and a high-tech industrial park. Starting with Coherent, we were able to see how an international company benefits from the unique features of Vietnam, as well as how the culture of Vietnam adapts to a standardized corporation. In terms of the former, the company talked about how intelligent and skilled the Vietnamese labor force is. By producing in Vietnam, Coherent is able to not only cut labor costs but also use labor that is extremely beneficial to the quality of their production. As for the latter, the Vietnamese workers receive certain benefits from working for a multinational firm that prides itself on its ESG focus. For example, the factories are clean, orderly, and extremely modern. In addition to this, Coherent invests heavily in employee training (generally 6 months) to benefit both the company and the employee through monetizable and high-tech skills. These aspects of Coherent were interesting to learn about, as they were able to showcase parts of Vietnam that could only be discoverable through a business perspective.

After visiting Coherent, we visited Saigon Hi-tech Park, an industrial area that focuses on the research and development of new technology, as well as building an educational-industrial pipeline that serves the Vietnamese people. One of the most interesting parts of this park was the training center, in which we were able to see Vietnamese students developing both themselves and technology in the lab they were working in. The educational-industrial ties showcased in this center are another interesting result of the communist/socialist environment of Vietnam. With businesses and educational institutions led by the same government, students can be developed in an efficient way that benefits the industrial goals of the nation. Although a similar pipeline exists in the United States, it is up to the universities to survey and understand what skills private firms are looking for, rather than having the government oversee this alignment. As with many other differences between Vietnam and the United States, it will be interesting to see how the differences between the educational-industrial alignment in each country will produce the desired result for each nation in the future.