At the opening ceremony of a short course to improve information security skills (Photo: cmc.com.vn)

To date, Vietnam has 8 training institutions that specialize in information security, and 19 certified training institutions nationwide.

Between 2014 and 2020, more than 3,200 engineers, bachelors and masters of information security were trained.

But information security experts of the Ministry of Information and Communications say that Vietnam’s human resources in information security haven’t met the demand in quantity and quality, especially in localities.

According to Cybersecurity Venture, information security is one of 5 industries where Vietnam will lack personnel in the future and ranks second among the industries lacking human resources in the digital transformation era.

Nguyen Huu Hung, Director of the Academy of Cryptography Techniques, said that his agency has identified a few key solutions under which by 2025 the Academy must have at least 25% of its teachers capable of teaching in English.

“We aim to set standards for engineers that will be close to the world's IT engineering standards and train students to earn international certificates in information technology and information security, with good enough English skills to work in an international environment. We’ll help students in their final academic year land internships at enterprises with modern working environments and international integration,” said Hung.

The training environment for information security will provide a foundation for information security engineers before they start to work in agencies, organizations, or enterprises. A close link between schools and international technology corporations will be useful for the students.

DevFest, an annual worldwide event hosted by the Google Developers Group to bring the technology closer to the developers, was held in December in Hanoi.

Vo Ngoc, a software engineer with 3 years of experience in developing mobile applications on flutter and Android at the VNG Company, a Vietnamese tech unicorn in the Top 10 Asian technology companies, insisted that “DevFest has connected developers, enterprises, speakers, high-caliber human resources, and students to share technology knowledge.

“It’s an opportunity to find new development directions,” said Ngoc.

Nguyen Hoang Bao Dai, an AI expert, said the technology festival has different formats, including talks about new technologies and exchanges to clarify the problems that students are facing.

Dai told VOV that he felt the students who came to the festival were very enthusiastic.

“When talking to them about Machine Learning, they say they’re worried that although they like Machine Learning or Deep Learning but their math knowledge is poor. In that case, what should they do? Actually, that used to be my story. I'm not too good at math, either, but I think I'm experienced enough to tell them a way to start with Machine Learning and Deep Learning without having to learn too much math. Of course, you need some basic knowledge to understand Machine Learning and AI. I think they absolutely can start with the things they like most,” Dai recalled.

According to technology experts, to develop digital human resources, it’s necessary to see what the world is doing and new technologies like AI and machine learning need to be included in the curricula and discussed widely on technology-intensive forums and at technology festivals.

Nguyen Quang Dong, Director of the Institute for Policy Studies and Media Development and a member of the Vietnam Digital Communications Association, underscored the need to improve the current training capacity of schools.

“Universities should work more with other schools, because training in information security and cyber security in Vietnam is still quite new and is done at a few large schools like Hanoi University of Science and Technology, the Posts and Telecommunications Institute of Technology, and the Academy of Cryptography Techniques. But the training capacity of these schools remains quite limited, so it’s necessary to expand the scale of training at high schools and tertiary schools, and then connect with enterprises," according to Dong.

He said improving digital human capacity is one of the 5 most important criteria in the information security development index for members of the international telecommunications union.

Training of digital human resources should be carried out at three levels - knowledge dissemination and raising the awareness of the public, academic training of students, and training of professionals, Dong concluded.