FPT to raise Covid-caused orphans until adulthood

Chairman Truong Gia Binh of FPT Corporation, one of the largest information technology companies in Vietnam, announced on September 16 that the company will raise about 1,000 children who became orphans due to Covid-19 until they reach early adulthood.

Chairman of FPT Corporation Truong Gia Binh. Photo: Tran Huan/ FPT

FPT will assume responsibility for feeding and teaching children who lost parents in the Covid-19 pandemic until they finish higher education or post-graduate programs depending on their capability.

The funding, which costs VND80 billion (US$3.5 million) per year, will last for 20 years, Binh said.

Binh said he made up his mind to build a school to raise up the children just less than 24 hours after the idea flashed into his mind. He ascribed the decision to compassion given to their big losses caused by the pandemic and to being inspired by a childhood memory that was full of hunger and living away from parents because of war.

“For children who have lost their parents due to Covid-19, I want to create an environment for them to study and turn their pain into strengths to conquer the heights,” Binh said.

FPT City Danang will be their future home and school where children can develop their abilities and pursue their dreams in technology, art, and science. FPT’s great friends and leading scholars in the above fields will be invited to join training courses.

“The school was built in a model of a military academy that helps them, as cadets, get along with friends, practice disciplines, spend a lot of time studying and developing and then serve their homeland,” Binh said. “The greatest human strength is to be loved and to love others. In the academy, children learn to love and give back their love to life.”

“I hope they know how to share, grow up, become talented people, and soon serve the country,” he noted.

The academy’s curricula and training programs will be built on basis of both learning and doing together, helping vulnerable children to nurture their compassion, learning Vovinam martial art, traditional music, and soft skills to become well-trained people.

Binh said the curricula would be particularly designed by experienced educators, teachers, and he himself.

FPT City Danang will be home for the orphans. Photo: FPT

In response to an answer what make him believe in the success of this training model, Binh said FPT’s 33-year history has proved its journey of turning belief into practice with some breakthroughs in training IT engineers at the time the country was encircled by an economic embargo, in exporting software to make them Vietnam’s biggest exporter, and in training 90,000 schoolchildren and students currently.

Binh’s decision of building a school to raise up orphans was made the same day Vietnam’s President Nguyen Xuan Phuc expressed his concerns about the situation of some 1,500 children in Ho Chi Minh City who became orphans because of Covid-19. Phuc worried about the risk of psychological trauma and hardship in the study of those children.

Of 1,500 orphans in Ho Chi Minh City, 490 are at primary school and 580 are secondary school graders.

FPT Corporation has eight subsidiaries and five associate companies working in three main sectors: information technology, telecommunications, and education.

The company founded a university in hope of expanding the number of capable engineers available. It currently has nearly 20,000 students, of whom about half are majoring in IT.

In the 2019-2021 period, FPT plans to embark upon a digital transformation -- a strategic shift from IT services to DX service provider -- and to be among the top 50 global digital services.

Founder Truong Gia Binh who holds a 7.08% stake in FPT was given the Nikkei Asia Award by the Nikkei Group (Japan) in 2013 for his contributions to the development of Vietnam’s IT industry.