Lao Dong reporter had a conversation with Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Van Hieu, Principal of the School of Interdisciplinary Sciences and Arts, Hanoi National University - the unit accompanying the workshop.
Can you tell us the meaning of this year's workshop theme as well as the context in which the school cooperated with the Vietnam Linking Network (Engaging with Vietnam) to organize the workshop?
It can be said that the 15th Vietnam Connection Workshop taking place from December 12-14 is the product of a process of meeting, connecting, cooperating and developing ideas between the School of Interdisciplinary Sciences and Arts (SIS), Hanoi National University (VNU) and the Vietnam Connecting Network (Engaging with Vietnam). If the School of Interdisciplinary Sciences and Arts has the mission of conducting training and scientific research activities in interdisciplinary and interdisciplinary fields, pioneering, especially in the fields of heritage, creative economy, cultural and artistic industry in Vietnam, then the Vietnam Connecting Network (Engaging with Vietnam) - a prestigious interdisciplinary academic network, gathering experts from many different fields, focusing on issues related to Vietnam.
The theme of this Workshop is Creating knowledge, Creative Industry, Education and the AI Era: Looking back and towards the future. The theme of the Workshop clearly demonstrates the connection of academic activities with current Vietnamese social life. In recent years, we have witnessed the unprecedented development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, which has changed many aspects of life, and created unprecedented opportunities and challenges. An era of AI has opened with the profound change of all human life.
In the past two decades, although the state's policies have always emphasized the importance of developing the cultural - creative and artistic industries in the national economic strategy, in reality, the growth and contribution of these sectors are still not really commensurate with the potential.
Will the ongoing scientific and technological revolution with the AI era have any impact on these fields, what practical opportunities and challenges will it create? All of these require problem solving both in theory and practice with the participation of not only researchers but also artists and educators, policy makers and creative practitioners... That is the goal of this year's Workshop.
What is new about issues of knowledge creation, cultural industry, creativity and art education under the impact of the knowledge revolution and artificial intelligence compared to previous discussions or seminars?
It can be said that this is the seminar with the theme most closely associated with practice when focusing on knowledge creation, creative industry and education, and at the same time, it is also the most profoundly topical when placing these fields in the context of the AI era, an era-oriented revolution that requires all areas of human life to have changes. That is the new point and the uniqueness of the theme and goals of this Workshop.
In the world, the creative cultural industry is gradually becoming a new growth driver for many countries. Vietnam with a culture rich in identity, young human resources and high entrepreneurship has great potential in this field.
However, for the cultural - creative and artistic industry to truly become an economic driving force contributing to growth and especially, sustainable development, the cultural - creative and artistic industry in Vietnam needs to be developed on the basis of a system of education and creativity knowledge adapting to the AI era, capable of providing new skills and new thinking on the basis of a new training organization model with the connection between universities - businesses - the state - the community.
In particular, the above factors are placed in the era of AI, scientific and technological products are gradually changing the way we think, learn, work and are creative. That is also a factor that forces us to look back at the problems of creating knowledge, new values and human creativity, especially in areas that require high creativity such as the cultural and artistic industry.
Vietnam's development is at a particularly important moment. If two decades ago, we mainly looked at education - science in the direction of "catching up" with the world, now Vietnam is having the opportunity to lead some trends if Vietnam, with great potential for creative energy from the young generation, diverse culture, rich history, strong community strength; with the advantage of being a rapidly transforming country, ready to experiment with new models and new technologies, we have the right "first" strategy.
At the same time, to truly become a center of creativity and knowledge, Vietnam needs three factors: an open, flexible, interdisciplinary educational ecosystem; an institution that supports innovation, accepts risks and allows experimentation and an ethical, humane and sustainable approach to the development of AI and the creative industry.
Thus, it can be seen that this workshop focuses on dialogues on many broad issues of theoretical level of social life such as knowledge education, but the central content will be a discussion focusing on questions about the current situation and future of the cultural industry and the creative economy as well as its position in social life in Vietnam and the world.
So how to mobilize the maximum comments in this workshop, sir?
We hope that this workshop will not only be a place to present research results. You can see that the guests participating are a diverse group of experts from many different working positions, expertise, and fields from universities, international cultural organizations, state management agencies to universities, creative enterprises, etc. In addition, this workshop emphasizes profound interdisciplinary nature. The participants come from many fields - history, culture, education, economics, art, urban, environmental, creative, and technological. That creates dialogues that you can sometimes not imagine in advance: an art researcher can discuss with an AI expert; a historian discusses with an economist about data, about contemporary knowledge.
The workshop also devoted a significant space to exchanges and artistic interactions through multimedia art displays and performances, seminars on contemporary art as well as exchanges with artists, designers, and creative producers.
The workshop also aims to connect with society and the community, especially young people and students, through implementing the form of mass lectures for students at Tran Phu Boarding School - Hoan Kiem as well as listening to opinions from the community on the basis of close cooperation with local authorities. With those efforts, we hope that the Vietnam Connection Conference 2025 will truly be a multi-dimensional connecting space, a forum that can inspire and inspire the development of creativity, art and the creative economy in Vietnam.
So, how did the School of Interdisciplinary Sciences and Arts, Vietnam National University, Hanoi contribute to the discussions at this Workshop and the school's approach to the above issue?
We hope to turn this opportunity into a space to connect people working in education and research with artists - businesses - managers as well as to make scientific activities closer to the public and not only as a co-organizer, we have also shaped the academic topics in this workshop and at the same time, one of the units with the most presence in academics at the workshop.
In recent years, the School of Interdisciplinary Sciences and Arts has always developed along with this philosophy through many activities such as the Hanoi Creative Design Festival, Hanoi International photography Festival as well as community connection events, cooperation programs with creative businesses.
I hope that the experiences from our practical training, research as well as artistic practice will be valuable shares to solve and solve the scientific and practical problems raised not only in this workshop but will contribute to the sustainable development of Vietnam's creative and knowledge economy in the new era.
