On August 16, at Phenikaa University, the Award Ceremony and Closing Ceremony of the Vietnam Artificial Intelligence Championship - Vietnam AI Championship 2026 (VAIC 2026) took place.
The competition is a playground to help students initially get acquainted, learn and confidently use technology to solve practical problems right from when they are still in school.
In the final round, there were 4 excellent contestants who won Gold Medals including Tu Dinh Nguyen and Tran Minh Hieu from the High School for the Gifted, Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City; Pham Duc Minh and Vu Minh Duy from the High School for Gifted Students in Science, Vietnam National University Hanoi.
In which, Minh Hieu won the special prize by answering questions on the spot for 4 contestants right at the award ceremony.
The question was raised by Prof. Dr. Thai Tra My - Chairman of VAIC - asking candidates in one minute to find 5 folk songs and proverbs with meanings similar to the phrase "Dong cam cong kho".
“I was quite surprised because the question did not belong to professional knowledge about artificial intelligence. I think the organizers want to remind us to take advantage of AI capabilities to aim for shared and human values” - Minh Hieu confided.
Before participating in this year's season, the male student participated in VAIC 2025 and VOAI 2025 but did not achieve the desired results.
Thanks to the knowledge and experience from previous competitions, I know how to study theory more focused, effectively allocate 8 hours of exam time to avoid exhaustion" - the male student shared.
According to Minh Hieu, this year's exam questions belong to the medical field, candidates need to apply AI to access information as required by doctors and check important information from PET/CT images.
The male student said: "For me, the most difficult part in the practical exam is computer vision. To win the Gold Medal, I tried to minimize errors in this part, while promoting my strength in natural language processing.
In addition to the prizes at the competition, 4 Gold Medalists will be sent to compete in the International Artificial Intelligence Olympiad. This is also the initial goal that motivated Minh Hieu to return to the competition.
In the near future, I plan to move to Hanoi to facilitate studying and aim for awards in the international arena," the male student added.
Representative of the organizing committee, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tran Anh Duc - University of Massachusetts, USA - shared: "With the goal of orienting students in the AI era, the contest is organized to arouse their interest in artificial intelligence, and at the same time help students learn how to apply AI to life and work in the future.
According to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tran Anh Duc, the competition also helps to find talents to try their hand and win international awards. The organizers expect Minh Hieu and this year's contestants to bring proud achievements to Vietnam at the upcoming tournament.
