CEO Phenikaa MaaS and ambition to digitally transform the field of smart transportation

Recently, Forbes magazine has announced the list of The Forbes Under 30 Asia Class of 2022 (Outstanding faces under the age of 30 in Asia in 2022). The year 2022 has recorded a record number of 4000 candidates nominated for the list. However, only 300 names were reviewed by reporters, judges in the evaluation board, Forbes’ evaluation and 90 people were honored in the final list. And young man Le Yen Thanh – CEO Phenikaa MaaS is one of the 5 representatives of Vietnam honored by Forbes Under 30 Asia.

Le Yen Thanh was born in 1994 in An Giang, graduated in Information Technology from the University of Natural Sciences (National University of Ho Chi Minh City). It is known that since he was still in school, this student has successfully researched and created the BusMap application. Currently, Le Yen Thanh is the Founder – CEO of BusMap application (or Phenikaa MaaS).

Since university, Le Yen Thanh has shown a preference for things related to start-ups, building new products over technology jobs in small projects in large technology companies. However, Thanh himself was aware that the resources were not enough to start a business, so after graduating, he went to work at another startup to learn first and then gradually increase the difficulty. Besides, Thanh also took on higher positions, from a technology team manager, then CTO, then CEO of other startups.

Le Yen Thanh also has time to work at many startups as well as practice at Google USA. However, not long after that, he chose to give up the opportunity in a foreign country to return and build BusMap into a serious business model.

CEO Le Yen Thanh and his associates Phenikaa MaaS are considered a team of talented employees with aspiration to contribute to a smarter and better life.

Talking about the process of meeting Mr. Ho Xuan Nang, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Phenikaa Group, Thanh shared, in the process of bringing the BusMap application to participate in startup competitions and meeting investors in Japan, Thanh had I know Mr. Le Anh Son, Deputy Institute of Phenikaa Research and Technology of Phenikaa Group. In February 2020, Mr. Son called and asked Thanh if he wanted to make the BusMap application even stronger. And after that phone call, there was a “fated” meeting with Chairman of the Board of Directors of Phenikaa Group Ho Xuan Nang.

The reason Thanh chose Phenikaa is because in addition to being financially invested, Thanh and his startup are supported by the Group in terms of human resources, technology and systems.

With support from Phenikaa Group in many aspects, Le Yen Thanh and his team have built a profitable business model. This 9x CEO’s mapping technology is applied to bus management for schools and smart city development. As for B2B, Phenikaa MaaS already has big customers such as VinBus, Grab and a number of businesses in Da Nang Port and the B2G segment has Ho Chi Minh City. Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang. This startup even received contracts from the Middle East region.

However, with the BusMap application, CEO Le Yen Thanh was adamant and affirmed that it will always be free for users. During the 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic, Phenikaa MaaS has used its own mapping technology to support the deployment of mobile food buses, especially the COVID-19 epidemiological map.

In late 2020, early 2021, the Company deployed to Da Nang and Hai Duong when these two localities became the focus of the COVID-19 pandemic. Later, a few other provinces also knew and wanted to deploy the COVID Map application. Accordingly, Phenikaa Group and Phenikaa MaaS decided to sponsor free maps for those localities.

When asked about Phenikaa MaaS’s competitiveness in the field of smart traffic, Thanh said that the first strength of the company is its young staff, the ability to quickly research new technologies, and the entrepreneurial spirit. industry to quickly adapt to the market. The next strength is the ability to customize customer requirements in a short period of time based on existing core technology.

Talking about the development of the smart city/smart traffic field, Thanh said that this is a difficult field that cannot be completed overnight, and each province and city has its own problems. are different and have their own particularities that need to be addressed. In which, the most important factor is the human-centered factor. Must build the simplest product so that any citizen can easily use it, especially the elderly, less tech-savvy, to be able to take advantage of the benefits that a smart city can bring. bring.

According to Linh Nga