Hello everyone,

I just thought since we were very fortunate to receive support from Thanh Nien Newspapers, particularly Ms. Thuc Minh , for this final round of Challenge Future, I would like to thank them for their help. We got over 100 votes thanks to the article alone(!), plus an offer from a very notable company in Vietnam to help us with an office in HCM City over the course of 2010 summer. Yes, we were that fortunate to be able to gather 5 talented, dedicated students from all over the world (US, Singapore, France, Vietnam) to volunteer full-time for this project this summer. With a small office in HCM City? Well, we certainly look forward to it!

During the past months, we’ve been devoting our time for planning, restructuring the website to accommodate future growth, and… voting of course! and so the website hasn’t grown much in contents. But hopefully we’ll soon be able to release more useful contents in a number of subjects for everyone. Anyhow, we are really trying our best.

Besides, there was an interesting question from a person who wanted to help us spread the words that I’d like to share. It is indeed very short, and from a constructive perspective: “Why should people vote for ConnEd?”

To be honest, with the mission of Challenge Future “to promote prosperity and sustainability around the world, bridge the gap between the rich and the poor“, I think every idea that suits the mission and is potential should be rewarded. Good ideas that become true are rare, however. Established excellent ideas are even rarer. They are rare not for the fact that nobody could think of them, but for the fact that they need to somehow get to the right people at the right time. Like Victor Hugo once said “One can withstand armies, but they can’t withstand an idea whose time has come“. Since there’s only one prize, I would have given up the competition for an idea that could surpass ConnEd in terms of its meaning and potential. However, no other ideas in the competition could convince me thus far yet. And so, I decided to move forward in the competition. Nonetheless, I will keep going with ConnEd till the day it either fully grows up or perishes.

Now to answer the question, I gave the following reasons:

• ConnEd wasn’t created because of or solely for a competition and then all it can ever leave behind are pages of imaginative descriptions. ConnEd looks at Challenge Future competition as a chance for people who care about the project to get together, a touch of encouragement, a very important form of sponsorship, and an opportunity for start-up capital.
• There have been many volunteers who were willing to dedicate their time and efforts to bring ConnEd to the final without realizing their personal benefits, no official recognition, no resume maker, no monetary incentive and no wonderful trip to Slovenia.
• ConnEd has a potential. We’ve been conducting all these operations over the Internet, through thousands of miles of geographical distance, half a day of time difference, through the frustration of remote communications, through months of gradual but persistent progress, and most importantly… through the school homeworks we’re still facing each day. This summer we’ll be together in HCM City with full-time dedication. Please wish us good luck.
• For those who would like to know how we’ll use the money if won, there’s some good news. We’ll make transparency our top policy for long-term benefits and will clearly indicate so in our business plan which we’ll present in Bled, Slovenia this May.
• I personally do look forward to see ConnEd materialize in a global context as a community model, with Vietnam as its pioneer just like the US once was for Wikipedia. And so, that’s something I know some Vietnamese people would love to see it happen.
• I also don’t think that your votes will jeopardize other teams’ chance. At best, your votes will help us not be disadvantaged.
• Finally, (it’s kind of irrelevant) I hope to see ConnEd has its own strength to survive with or without the prize.

Well, it’s time for me to get back to homeworks. And to my friends whom I’ll see again this summer, I really look forward to it! (perhaps if I come back without a bunch of money to figure out how to use, that would be better since we would have a whole lot more time to spare on karaoke-ing, partying, footballing, and traveling. )

Regards,

Hai Long