Xin chao! Toi ten la Manh. We started our second day with a class at UEF learning about development of the Mekong delta, and its importance to food security in Vietnam. Then, we had a little break for some Vietnamese iced coffee. It is very different from American coffee, much stronger. After, we had a Vietnamese language class where we learned how to introduce ourselves, and what our Vietnamese names are.

Then, we had lunch, and headed to GreenViet for our first company visit. The company has developed a shark like mindset, of swim deep and fast, and bite everything. I think that this mindset has helped them establish themselves as a leader in green buildings because they treat even the small projects as important as the big ones. This allows the company to gain experience and confidence to tackle bigger, more complicated projects. Vietnam has a long history of being resilient against countries that try to come and take from them. GreenViet also adopted this philosophy by focusing mostly on local projects and helping local companies become more sustainable. By doing so, they are able to expand into a more global market by building strong local connections, which lead to other projects outside of Vietnam. For example, they had a project from a Japanese company with an office in Vietnam, and by providing excellent work they were able to also get a job for an office they had in Japan. One thing that resonated with me from the visit was that Mr Quang was first an engineer, then furthered his education by getting his MBA, and through the combination of these two experiences was able to be successful in starting and co-founding GreenViet.