The fifth Sao Khue Awards ceremony took place in Hanoi on April 27 in the presence of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Thien Nhan as well as the wining individuals and businesses.

The Sao Khue Awards ceremony has been held by the Vietnam Software Association (VINASA) since 2003 to honour individuals, organisations and businesses who have promoted outstanding software products.

In his speech, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan praised the efforts made by the sector in producing advanced software programmes to serve the country’s socio-economic development needs.

Although the Vietnamese software industry’s earnings reached US$500 million in 2007, a four-fold increase over the 2003 level of US$120 million, the country is facing major opportunities and challenges in the international integration process. Therefore, the ICT sector needs to devise a long-term development strategy with a focus on developing human resources so that Vietnam will have approximately 1 million competent ICT employees by 2015, said Mr Nhan.

The 2008 Sao Khue Awards included 8 prizes for individuals, 8 prizes for outstanding software businesses, 17 prizes for commercial software products, 4 prizes for software services, 3 prizes for e-commerce products and 7 prizes for new software products.

Among the 47 Sao Khue Award winners, only one individual was honoured. He is Chu Hao, former Deputy Minister of Science and Technology and former Head of National Steering Committee for Information Technology (NSCIT).

A new feature of the Sao Khue Awards was that “The Golden partner of Vietnam’s software industry” title was presented for the first time to eight International ICT groups, including IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Motorola, HitachiSoft, Canon IT Solutions, Harvey Nash and Agilis.

The businesses receiving the Sao Khue Awards will be supported by VINASA in order to develop their trademarks and expand their markets.