The boy who helped conquer the million-dollar project

In March 2021, FPT Software surpassed many technology giants and won a contract to carry out a project to map the whole of Japan in detail, serve self-driving cars and deliver goods automatically by drones. , worth $47.5 million.

The Japanese partner only allows the deviation of the map from reality by no more than 0.5 m. Another task is to display the correct elevation and number of floors of apartment buildings for the unmanned delivery device to find the right address. To implement, the company mobilized 600 employees in both Japan and Vietnam.

The person who directly manages and operates this project is Nguyen Truong Duy, 32 years old, the only person in the project team who does not have college degree.

“This project needs to use a low-altitude aircraft, take pictures of the whole of Japan, and then send the images to Da Nang for engineers to make detailed maps,” Duy said about the biggest project of his life, up to now. current time.

Duy has to constantly go back and forth between the two countries to train personnel. Mid-2021, Covid-19 After a strong outbreak in the country, he still volunteered to return to Vietnam for a month to solve problems and help the project keep up with schedule.

Born in a family of four brothers, from a young age Duy helped his parents to farm and grow sugar cane in Que My commune, Que Son district, Quang Nam province. To give rice to his children, his parents often eat cassava through meals. Meat and fish with this family has always been a dream.

Duy said, in an empty house, he often had to do his homework under the only light in the house. In the summer, Duy walks barefoot on hot sunny streets and in winter, he only has one set of clothes to keep warm. In middle school, he went to collect firewood and herd cows. When he grew up a little more, the young boy began to know the heaviness of the cement bags…

“Neighbors built a concrete pig sty. Lying on that foundation for a nap during the day was so cool, I kept wishing my house had a concrete foundation instead of soil,” Duy recalled his miserable childhood. If the wall of the house was not covered with the academic merit certificates of the four sisters, the only encouragement of the poor children, he would have had to drop out of school a long time ago.

Graduating from high school, like many classmates, Nguyen Truong Duy also “had all kinds of dreams in his head”. “I always wanted to get ahead, do something to get out of poverty,” he recalls. But, in the countryside where everyone has a hard time, the only way out of the gray life is to go to the city to earn a living or export labor. Only choose the second way.

To have enough 120 million VND to pay into the company labor export, his family mortgaged the red book, borrowed everywhere. “Try to study and be a worker. Don’t be a farmer like your parents, you will suffer for the rest of your life,” said Nguyen Tan Liem, 56, Duy’s father encouraged him when his son took a deposit to pay for school, looking forward to going abroad to change his life.

Only knowing a foreign language the better, the higher the chance to go to Japan, so I have to rush to study. When his roommates turned off the lights to go to sleep at 11pm, he left the lights on until 2-3am. Go out to eat or go out to cool off, also bring a Japanese book with you. After four months, Duy became the most outstanding student among 200 workers at the center.

Having excelled in foreign languages, going to Japan instead of working as a welding worker for a shipyard in Okayama province, Duy was promoted to work as a machine operator, light work and higher income. He worked overtime 12-14 hours a day, after three years, the money he sent home was enough for his parents to pay off the debt, redeem the red book and buy more land to build a house.

Company Duy at that time had 50 Vietnamese workers. In order to further foster Japanese for foreign workers, they hire teachers to teach on two weekends. Despite the continuous overtime and lack of sleep, this guy has never missed a class. After more than two years, the class still has three people, including Duy. From this free class, the young Vietnamese man passed the Japanese language test.

At the end of the labor export term, Duy returned home and applied for the position of product quality control officer for a Japanese software company. After many rounds of exams, he was accepted along with five other friends who all graduated from the University of Foreign Languages. In the countryside, the father heard the good news showing off everywhere: “Duy does not have a degree, he can still work in an office, sit in the air conditioner”.

In the early days of coming into contact with computers, Duy could only “knock the trigger” with two fingers. Colleagues teased him, he was heartbroken. “But it’s true. If you have a low starting point, you have to try harder than others,” he said, adding that he enjoyed a quote read in a book: “Knowing how to seize opportunities, persevere and work hard. accounted for only 95% of the success.

Efforts to study while working, Duy practiced typing with 10 fingers and taught himself office computers. He always volunteered to work overtime and help the girls at night. The company has a lot of work, and volunteered to stay for more than 20 hours without rest. After half a year, Duy was promoted to team leader. The next year, was promoted to head of the department managing 50 employees.

Hardworking and good Japanese, Duy gradually attracted the attention of company leaders. In 2010, he went to Japan to work as an assistant to the chairman of the board of directors cum sales manager. After two years of returning to Vietnam, the young Vietnamese man continued to be promoted to the position of production director, managing 300 employees.

After 5 years, the guy from Quang Nam no longer wanted to work for a foreign boss, so he decided to join FPT Software Da Nang. As a production manager, he is responsible for working with partners to convince them to use the company’s products. The project is deployed, and continues to operate until the work is smooth.

In addition to the detailed mapping project of the whole of Japan, Duy participated in negotiations and obtained a million-dollar contract from a leading Japanese automobile corporation to build an artificial intelligence system, recognizing obstacles. self-driving car camera.

“Duy is dedicated and enthusiastic at work, so he can participate in many key projects of the company,” shared Mr. Cong Thuan, Duy’s direct manager.

Although he did not attend university, Duy read many books about technology, foreign languages, economics or history. He admitted that he studied a lot so as not to be out of step with the times because he did not update new information.

Seeing Duy become famous even though he had never sat in the lecture hall, his sister once asked the question: “There is no need for a degree University still succeed, so where is the need to go to school?” He affirmed, university is not the only way to success, but it will be the shortest way to find the right path for the future.

“Those who do not go to university but succeed, perhaps they will be more successful if they go to school,” Nguyen Truong Duy affirmed.

Hai Hien