Another day in Vietnam means another day starting with a UEF lecture about sustainability, adaptability, and resilience. Today, we worked with a different group of Vietnamese students. I worked with Caden, Teedie, Linda, and Yuna to create a pitch on how PepsiCo could recover from a global disaster. Caden and I showed the UEF students American memes and more English idioms, which we all laughed at together.
The main attraction of Day 3 was the trip to Dien Quang. Dien Quang is Vietnam’s largest manufacturer and producer of lighting, smart devices, and lighting products. They offer services across the globe and are working towards greater sustainability. During the visit, we toured their production lines and saw the process of how raw materials turn into actual equipment and decoration. The part that most interested me were these automation lines. They only had one or two workers per line controlling each process. To me, this seemed a little depressing because eventually there will not be any positions available for those looking for jobs since robots or other autonomous processes will completely take over the factory. Good thing there was a humorous sign in the bathroom to lighten the mood.
All of the staff were incredibly nice and were very knowledgeable about the topic and the process of manufacturing and developing products. We were taught about how different colored lighting may result in different perspectives on items and how a certain color on meat may make it look fresher than other colors of lighting. We also learned the effect lightning has on fashion and clothing. Some lights offer better views of backgrounds behind figures, which is perfect for certain fashion and beauty models.
The smart products they produce are very similar to Amazon Echo or Google Home devices that control other smart devices in your home. They can even lock doors and control lights with just one sentence. Towards the end, we were able to ask questions directly to the top brass of Dien Quang. From them, we learned that they will be expanding their reach to South America, as that is a place they do not have much presence in right now. Dien Quang has implemented sustainability while also competing directly with other companies. I look forward to the Cu Chi Tunnels day trip tomorrow and the other site visits to come!
