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The first global entrepreneurship competition for Vietnamese. The scope of mentorship includes business plan, presentation, pitching skills.

FORMAT

VietChallenge is held in three rounds and contestants participate as teams.

- Registration: Startups will sign up by their field: Tech, Life Sciences, or General.

- Screening: the Judges reviews pitches and promotion video clips submitted online via VietChallenge's website.

- Vietnam Round and International Semi Final Round: Selected teams compete with each other (on stage in Vietnam and online for international track).

- Final Round: Finalists present in person in Hanoi, Vietnam.

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MENTORSHIP PROGRAM

Our Mentors who have years of experience in business will help the Semi-Finalists become a better version of themselves throughout a 6-month mentorship program. All of the mentoring sessions will be held online.

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FINAL ROUND

The grand final round will provide the bridge necessary to help young Vietnamese entrepreneurs get access to business connections and resources in order to facilitate the development of their business plans.

10/08/2026

🌉 Less Than a Week Away: VietChallenge Is Coming Back to the Bay Area!

Join us on October 16 for VietChallenge Capital: Startup Pitch & Investor Connections, bringing together investors, entrepreneurs, business leaders, and community members across the Vietnamese innovation ecosystem.

📅 October 16, 2026
🕐 5:30 PM to 8:30 PM
📍 Bay Area

We are building the largest and most engaged angel investor network dedicated to supporting entrepreneurs of Vietnamese heritage and businesses connected to Vietnam. This gathering marks the next chapter of VietChallenge, creating opportunities for investors and founders to connect, exchange ideas, and build relationships that move innovation forward.

✨ Meet Three Startups Across Biotech, Healthcare, and AI

🧬 CELLENS INC: Pioneering noninvasive cancer detection through single cell biophysical markers.

🤖 BIVA: Developing AI powered virtual hotline assistants to help small and medium sized businesses manage customer inquiries, identify leads, and handle bookings.

🔬 Post Translational Medicines (PTM): Discovering new therapeutic targets for age related and chronic diseases.

💡 Participating startups are seeking investments ranging from $100,000 to $250,000.

Are you an angel investor, family office representative, entrepreneur, or industry expert interested in Vietnamese innovation? Join us to meet promising founders, explore investment opportunities, and become part of a growing network supporting the next generation of businesses.

🔗 RSVP today: https://luma.com/e24r7yz4

Space is limited. We look forward to seeing you in the Bay Area!
Interested in joining VietChallenge as an angel investor and supporting founders in our network?

👉 Get involved: https://vietchallenge.org/

10/06/2026

⭐ A New Chapter for Jensen, A Lasting Legacy for VietChallenge

As Jensen Duy Vu steps away from the CEO role and into his next chapter with VietChallenge, we're honored to share his reflections.

🗓 Date: October 16, 2026

⏰ Time: 5:30 PM to 8:30 PM

📍 Location: Bay Area

🔗 Register here: https://luma.com/e24r7yz4

✨ What moment changed you the most?

"VietChallenge has given me the privilege of experiencing so many once in a lifetime learning opportunities, from our flashy Nasdaq bell ringing moment to the honor of welcoming Vietnam's heads of state to the US and seeing diplomacy and international business development at work. However, if I had to pick one moment that I keep coming back to, it would be our VietChallenge Year End Event in 2021. We dedicated a portion of the event to Project Carry Forward, VietChallenge's philanthropic initiative in partnership with several nonprofits based in Vietnam that raised over $300,000 to support children in Vietnam who were orphaned by COVID. Seeing our community of entrepreneurs and investors rally around caring for our most vulnerable was a profound reminder of the ultimate purpose and meaning of building community, a reminder that has continued to guide my approach to life and work ever since."

✨ What has this community taught you about leadership?

"I am extremely proud that, since its inception, VietChallenge has operated as an organization run by volunteers. Constantly having to ask brilliant people to spend their precious time outside of their busy full time jobs and family commitments taking on (often) unglamorous tasks teaches you a lot about motivation and incentives. It quickly became clear to me that, for people to continue showing up and contributing to the organization, VietChallenge needed to be not only a vehicle for advancing entrepreneurship through capital deployment, but also a community of people who share genuine connections and enjoy spending time with one another. This realization has shaped my approach to leadership: I've learned that influence is most durable when it is rooted in authenticity, trust, and genuine care for those around you, as meaningful work is built not through titles or formal authority alone, but through relationships that make people want to contribute."

✨ What comes next for you?

"VietChallenge has thrived in recent years thanks to the continued support of our expansive network of advisors, mentors, and investors, who have generously contributed their personal networks and resources to support the organization. As I take a step back from operating VietChallenge, I am excited to dedicate my time to exploring my professional interests and developing networks of my own, in order to increase my capacity to support VietChallenge's mission in the future."

💬 Please join us in thanking Jensen for his vision, generosity, and heart.

10/01/2026

✨ Startup Spotlight: Post Translational Medicines (PTM)

We're pleased to introduce Post Translational Medicines (PTM), a biotechnology company pioneering a new approach to drug discovery by targeting proteoforms, the distinct functional states of proteins that can reveal disease mechanisms and therapeutic opportunities beyond conventional protein targets.

🗓 Date: October 16, 2026
⏰ Time: 5:30 PM to 8:30 PM
📍 Location: Bay Area
🔗 Register here: https://luma.com/e24r7yz4

Co-founder Bryan Ngo, PhD, brings experience spanning Atos Labs, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, The Rockefeller University, Weill Cornell Medicine, Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry, and UC Irvine. He has assembled a multidisciplinary team of academic and industry leaders across biology, technology, computation, and drug discovery.

At the center of PTM’s platform is the ability to identify and characterize disease-associated proteforms directly in complex biological systems. By focusing on proteoforms rather than treating proteins as a single, uniform target, this approach aims to expand the druggable universe and uncover opportunities that may be missed by conventional methods and even the most advanced A.I.

PTM has advanced a broad pipeline of proteoform-selective modulators, with potential applications across neurodegeneration, cancer, inflammation, and aging. In parallel, the company has secured platform partnerships with leading biotechnology companies and was recently selected for up to $44 million in potential ARPA-H funding. For a company founded just 18 months ago, PTM’s scientific, commercial, and funding momentum provides strong validation of its broader thesis: that targeting disease-relevant proteoforms can unlock a new class of therapeutic opportunities and create a differentiated platform for drug discovery.

🗓 Date: October 16, 2026
⏰ Time: 5:30 PM to 8:30 PM
📍 Location: Bay Area
🔗 Register here: https://luma.com/e24r7yz4

Join us at VietChallenge Capital: Startup Pitch & Investor Connections to hear from Bryan Ngo and learn how PTM is exploring new approaches to drug discovery and expanding the possibilities of precision therapeutics.

09/28/2026

✨ Startup Spotlight: BIVA

We’re pleased to introduce BIVA, a Voice AI company building AI employees for businesses across Southeast Asia. Founded by Frost (Đàm Bá Quyền), a Vietnamese speech AI pioneer, BIVA’s voice AI agents are trained for specific industries and can answer, qualify, book, follow up, and handle workflows from day one.

🗓 Date: October 16, 2026
⏰ Time: 5:30 PM to 8:30 PM
📍 Location: Bay Area
🔗 Register here: https://luma.com/e24r7yz4

Frost began working on Vietnamese speech AI at Viettel in 2016 before helping develop core speech technologies for Kiki, Zalo’s Vietnamese voice assistant. He later co-founded SmartCall, an enterprise voice AI company acquired by Minh P**c Transformation, where he held AI, product, and technology leadership roles and delivered Voice AI Agents to more than 50 enterprises. He founded BIVA in February 2025.

Today, BIVA serves 93 paying businesses, generating $295K in ARR and handling approximately 1.1 million calls per month, with gross margin reaching 49%. BIVA’s approach is designed to let businesses start with the calls they struggle most to answer, such as after-hours and overflow calls, before expanding into front desk, outbound customer care, and the workflows behind each call.

At the core of BIVA’s platform are two engines: an industry-specific learning system that evaluates calls against each vertical’s own benchmarks and continuously improves the agents, and a technology that allows an agent to learn how a customer uses existing business software simply by watching a person perform the task once. This enables BIVA agents to work across fragmented systems without waiting for traditional integrations.

BIVA also builds its own voice stack for Vietnamese telephone audio. In a September 2026 benchmark covering 24,062 real 8 kHz call-center utterances across eight systems, BIVA recorded a 14.4% word error rate, compared with 20.4% for the best of the other seven systems tested. The company reports that its voice infrastructure costs approximately $0.00083 per minute on its own stack.

With a growing customer base in Vietnam and plans to expand across additional markets and industries in Southeast Asia, BIVA is building toward a model where one experienced AI employee can take on more of a business’s work over time.

🗓 Date: October 16, 2026
⏰ Time: 5:30 PM to 8:30 PM
📍 Location: Bay Area
🔗 Register here: https://luma.com/e24r7yz4

Don’t miss the opportunity to hear from Frost and learn how BIVA is building the next generation of AI employees for businesses. Join us at VietChallenge Capital: Startup Pitch & Investor Connections and meet the BIVA team in person.

09/25/2026

From shared roots to innovations with global reach.

At VietChallenge Capital: Startup Pitch & Investor Connections, we are bringing together three founders of Vietnamese and Vietnamese American heritage who are building companies across healthcare, biotechnology, and AI.

📅 October 16, 2026
🕐 5:30 PM to 8:30 PM
📍 Bay Area
🔗 RSVP: https://luma.com/e24r7yz4

Their industries are different, but each founder is tackling a meaningful problem with an approach that challenges how things are done today.

🧬 CELLENS INC

Co-founder & CEO: Jean Pham

What if cancer could be detected by how a cell feels?

Cellens is developing a new approach to cancer diagnostics by measuring the biophysical properties of individual cells. Its platform uses Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) to analyze cells at the nanoscale, combined with machine learning to identify physical signatures associated with cancer, with an initial focus on non-invasive detection of bladder cancer recurrence using cells collected from urine samples.

🤖 BIVA

Founder & CEO: Frost (Đàm Bá Quyền)

What if a business never had to miss a customer call?

BIVA is building Voice AI employees for businesses, helping SMEs handle customer calls, answer questions, identify potential customers, and manage bookings. Founder Frost brings years of experience in Vietnamese speech and voice AI.

🔬 Post Translational Medicines (PTM)

Co-founder: Bryan Ngo, PhD

What if we could discover new medicines by looking beyond the biology we already know how to target?

PTM is exploring a new frontier in drug discovery by studying the dynamic forms and behavior of proteins. By combining proteomics, computational biology, and small molecule discovery, the company is working to uncover new therapeutic opportunities for age-related and chronic diseases.

From rethinking cancer diagnostics, to reimagining how businesses serve their customers, to exploring new possibilities in drug discovery, these founders are bringing different ideas, experiences, and perspectives to problems that matter.

Join us on October 16 in the Bay Area to meet the founders, hear their stories, and discover what they are building.

🎟️ Limited capacity. Register here:
https://luma.com/e24r7yz4

09/18/2026

🌉 VietChallenge is coming back to San Francisco!

Join us on October 16 for VietChallenge Capital: Startup Pitch & Investor Connections, bringing together investors, entrepreneurs, business leaders, and community members across the Vietnamese innovation ecosystem.

📅 October 16, 2026
🕐 5:30 PM to 8:30 PM
📍 Bay Area
🔗 RSVP: https://luma.com/e24r7yz4

Our goal is ambitious: to build the largest and most engaged angel investor network dedicated to supporting entrepreneurs of Vietnamese heritage and businesses connected to Vietnam.
This gathering marks the next chapter of VietChallenge, creating opportunities to connect investors with promising founders, exchange ideas, build relationships, and support the next generation of businesses.

✨ Startup Pitches: Three Founders Building Across Biotech, Healthcare, and AI

• CELLENS INC: Boston based biotechnology company pioneering non invasive cancer detection through single cell biophysical markers
• BIVA: AI powered virtual hotline assistant helping SMEs manage customer inquiries, identify leads, and handle bookings
• Post Translational Medicines (PTM): Biotechnology company identifying new therapeutic targets for age related and chronic diseases
Participating startups are seeking investments in the range of $100,000 to $250,000.

If you are an angel investor, family office, or industry expert interested in our innovation ecosystem, we invite you to join us.

🔗 RSVP: https://luma.com/e24r7yz4

Space is limited. RSVP by September 31, 2026 to secure your spot.
Interested in joining VietChallenge as an angel investor and supporting founders in our network?
👉 Get Involved: https://vietchallenge.org/

07/10/2026

We are excited to announce the launch of VietChallenge Capital.

Built on VietChallenge’s decade-long mission to support Vietnamese and Vietnam-linked entrepreneurs, VietChallenge Capital is a curated network connecting high-potential startups with angel investors, family offices, and ecosystem partners.

Through startup screening, investor preparation, targeted introductions, and showcase opportunities, VietChallenge Capital will help founders build relationships with aligned investors and create new pathways to capital.

The culmination of this network will be three pitching events each year, where curated companies pitch in person to VietChallenge Capital’s angel investors and receive investment decisions on the spot. This format is designed to move at the speed of ambition, connecting high-potential founders with the capital and conviction they need to grow.

“For over a decade, VietChallenge has connected founders with the capital, mentorship, and relationships they need to grow,” said Mai Zymaris, President and Founder of VietChallenge and Co-Chair of VietChallenge Capital. “VietChallenge Capital is the natural next chapter, connecting talented, visionary entrepreneurs directly with a curated network of angel investors and family offices, and giving those investors the chance to back founders who are changing the world.”

“Talent has never been the bottleneck for Vietnamese founders, access has,” said Danny Duong, Co-Chair of VietChallenge Capital. “VietChallenge Capital closes that gap, connecting ambitious startups with investors ready to move with them.”

The first pitching event is expected in October 2026 in the Bay Area.

Startup applications and investor interest forms open July 10. If your startup is interested in pitching at a future VietChallenge Capital event, or if you are an angel investor or family office looking to connect with promising founders, we invite you to learn more at vietchallenge.org/capital

[Tiếng Việt]

VietChallenge vui mừng công bố thành lập VietChallenge Capital.
Tiếp nối sứ mệnh hơn 10 năm đồng hành cùng các nhà sáng lập người Việt và các startup có kết nối với Việt Nam, VietChallenge Capital là mạng lưới kết nối các startup tiềm năng với các nhà đầu tư thiên thần, văn phòng quản lý tài sản gia đình, và các đối tác trong hệ sinh thái khởi nghiệp.

Thông qua hoạt động tuyển chọn startup, hỗ trợ cho nhà sáng lập, kết nối với các nhà đầu tư và tổ chức các sự kiện giới thiệu startup tới nhà đầu tư, VietChallenge Capital định hướng tiếp tục giúp các nhà sáng lập xây dựng quan hệ với đúng đối tác và mở rộng cơ hội tiếp cận nguồn vốn.

Điểm nhấn của mạng lưới VietChallenge Capital sẽ là ba sự kiện pitching mỗi năm, nơi các startup được tuyển chọn trực tiếp trình bày trước các nhà đầu tư thiên thần của VietChallenge Capital và nhận quyết định đầu tư ngay tại sự kiện. Đây là mô hình được thiết kế để chuyển động cùng tốc độ với tham vọng của các nhà sáng lập, kết nối những startup tiềm năng với nguồn vốn và niềm tin cần thiết để phát triển.

“Trong hơn một thập kỷ qua, VietChallenge đã kết nối các nhà sáng lập với nguồn vốn, cố vấn, và những mối quan hệ cần thiết để phát triển,” Mai Zymaris, Nhà sáng lập kiêm Chủ tịch Tổ Chức Khởi Nghiệp VietChallenge và Đồng Chủ tịch VietChallenge Capital, chia sẻ. “VietChallenge Capital là chương tiếp theo trong hành trình đó, tiếp tục kết nối trực tiếp những doanh nhân tài năng, có tầm nhìn với mạng lưới nhà đầu tư thiên thần và văn phòng quản lý tài sản gia đình được chọn lọc, đồng thời tạo cơ hội để các nhà đầu tư cùng đồng hành với những nhà sáng lập đang tạo ra thay đổi tích cực cho thế giới.”

“Rào cản lớn nhất đối với các nhà sáng lập Việt Nam chưa bao giờ là tài năng, mà là khả năng tiếp cận nguồn lực,” Danny Dương, Đồng Chủ tịch VietChallenge Capital, chia sẻ. “VietChallenge Capital ra đời để thu hẹp khoảng cách đó, kết nối các startup giàu tham vọng với những nhà đầu tư sẵn sàng đồng hành cùng họ.”

Sự kiện đầu tiên dự kiến diễn ra vào tháng 10 năm 2026 tại Vùng Bay Area, California.

Cổng đăng ký dành cho startup và nhà đầu tư sẽ mở vào ngày 10 tháng 7. Nếu startup của bạn muốn tham gia tại các sự kiện sắp tới của chúng tôi, hoặc nếu bạn là nhà đầu tư muốn kết nối với các startup tiềm năng trong mạng lưới của VietChallenge Capital, chúng tôi mời bạn tìm hiểu thêm và đăng ký tại vietchallenge.org/capital

02/17/2026

🧧 Wishing our global VietChallenge community a joyful Lunar New Year 2026! May the Year of the Fire Horse bring bold ideas, courageous leadership, and new opportunities for innovation, collaboration, and impact.

✨Thank you for being part of our journey to empower Vietnamese founders and connect ecosystems across borders!

Tiếng Việt:

🧧 VietChallenge kính chúc cộng đồng khởi nghiệp một Năm Mới An Khang, Thịnh vượng. Chúc mọi người một năm Bính Ngọ tràn đầy nguồn năng lượng mạnh mẽ, tinh thần tiên phong, và có thêm thật nhiều cơ hội mới để cùng nhau hơp tác, kết nối và tạo nên nhiều thành công mới.

✨Xin cảm chân thành cảm ơn các đối tác và bạn bè đã luôn đồng hành cùng VietChallenge trong hành trình hỗ trợ các nhà sáng lập Việt và kết nối hệ sinh thái khởi nghiệp trên toàn thế giới.

01/21/2026

Our VietChallenge team kicked off the year 2026 with a gathering for the VietChallenge Hanoi Chapter, co-hosted alongside ThinkZone Ventures. The evening was filled with laughters, warm connections, and inspirational stories of years and years building and operating within the rapidly burgeoning Vietnamese ecosystem.

As Do Bui, Founding Partner of ThinkZone captured in his fireside chat, the startup ecosystem of Vietnam has pushed past years of growing pains to reach build conditions that prioritize and reward operating excellence and grounded fundamentals, buoyed by new sets of favorable policies that acknowledged the role of entrepreneurship in Vietnam's growth: entrepreneurs will continue to play an undeniable role in Vietnam's next chapter.

VietChallenge is proud to continue partnering with founders and investors to usher in the global breakthrough chapter of Vietnamese entrepreneurship. We are grateful for the friends, partners, and supporters who have joined us this evening and contributed their insights to this evening of meaningful conversations.

Onwards and upwards: to an explosive 2026 and beyond! 🚀🧧💥

12/13/2025

✨ An Evening of Dialogue, Leadership, and Community at VietChallenge Boston

Last night, in the historic Old City Hall at the heart of Boston, VietChallenge gathered founders, investors, policymakers, and community leaders for an evening of dialogue, reflection, and connection.

This was not just an end-of-year celebration, but a shared pause to reflect on how far Vietnam’s innovation ecosystem has come and what it will take to move forward together. We opened the evening with welcome remarks from the VietChallenge team. Mai Zymaris, President of VietChallenge, and Jensen Vu, CEO, shared our vision for the next decade and reaffirmed our commitment to empowering Vietnamese entrepreneurs and strengthening ties across borders.

✨A Special Dialogue followed with H.E. Ambassador Do Hung Viet, Permanent Representative of Viet Nam to the United Nations, moderated by Natalie Bui. The Ambassador shared with the audience the role of the United Nations as a norm-setting platform and as a place where Vietnam’s story of transformation can be shared with the world. He also reflected on Vietnam’s new comprehensive strategic framework, including Resolution 57, and what it means for the country’s next era of growth. Most powerfully, he offered concrete ways the Vietnamese and Vietnamese diaspora can contribute, not abstractly, but in practical, meaningful ways.

✨The Keynote Conversation, “Vietnam’s Path toward Innovation and Technological Advancement,” brought together Dr. Loi Nguyen (Marvell), Thomas J. Vallely (Fulbright University Vietnam), and Tuan Pham (J.P. Morgan), moderated by VietChallenge founder, Mai Zymaris. The discussion was rich, candid, and wide-ranging. The speakers reflected on mentorship, the current capital environment, and the importance of Vietnamese professionals stepping into leadership roles, not only excelling technically but shaping institutions and systems. They explored the role of energy, infrastructure, and policy mechanisms in advancing technology, grounding big ideas in their lived experience.

✨The evening closed with a Fireside Chat, “Building Globally, Rooted Locally: Stories from Vietnamese Founders,” featuring Dimitry Tran (Harrison.ai), Christy Trang Le (Alabaster), and Jean Pham (Cellens), moderated by Jensen Vu. The conversation was energetic, encouraging, and full of humor. A common thread emerged as each founder spoke about how personal motivations, family, and a desire to help others shaped their entrepreneurial journeys. They spoke about surrounding themselves with excellence, relying on community during difficult moments, and the ongoing discipline of moving from being good to becoming great through continuous learning.

We are deeply grateful to our speakers, our guests, and everyone who made this gathering possible. Last night was a reminder that progress is not built alone, but through trust, shared values, and a community willing to show up for one another.

More to come! 🚀

Address

University Of Massachusetts Boston, 100 Morrissey Boulevard
Boston, MA
02125

Telephone

+18579194015

Website

https://vietchallenge.org/

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