IBM announced today that the Vietnam Information for Science and Technology Advance Innovation Portal went live on an IBM cloud computing infrastructure. The interactive online portal will be used by Vietnamese government institutions and universities to develop education programs for service science management and engineering (SSME), an emerging academic discipline and research area that integrates aspects of computer science, engineering, management science, business strategy and social science.

Further, IBM and Vietnam National University in Ho Chi Minh City today signed a Memorandum Of Understanding about SSME education and IT service curriculum (ITSC) for students and information technology (IT) professionals. This is the first time for Vietnam to use an online collaboration platform to support education on SSME and ITSC. Vietnam National University will be the first in the country to adopt such a program jointly created with IBM. The program will emphasize ITSC principles, which will train students and professionals in using technology for service delivery and better managing people, assets and processes.

To build and sustain a highly skilled and competitive workforce, the Vietnamese government plans to adopt the academic programs nationwide through a joint effort by the Ministry of Education and Training, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Information and Communications. These programs will offer computing courses in IT Service, free software tools, and business case studies representing real-world challenges.

Cultivating local talents with business and technical competencies has been a top priority and continued focus for the Vietnamese government. In February this year, Deputy Prime Minister of Vietnam Nguyen Thien Nhan and IBM Chairman, President and CEO Sam Palmisano met in Hanoi to discuss skill training for Vietnam talents among other topics.

“Our university is excited about adopting IBM’s SSME and ITSC curriculum, and using the Innovation Portal to enable open and collaborative relationships with other universities and research institutions around the world,” said Associate Professor Le Quang Minh, vice president of Vietnam National University – Ho Chi Minh City. “We look forward to using the portal to build skills that will empower students and workers to drive IT innovations and benefit our market. Starting on university campuses, the programs are expected to later expand to country-wide institutions across Vietnam.”

Using the Innovation Portal as an open platform to develop and share service management curriculum, the universities will gain access to the repository of course materials. And the courses can be accessed anywhere, anytime and by anyone online. Beyond supporting teaching and learning functions, the portal can also be used to support research and development activities among broader academic and business communities to foster new services for local and global markets.

“The Innovation Portal and SSME programs help drive Vietnam’s agenda for technology and economy development forward. They open up new opportunities for Vietnamese talent to flourish and interact with the world digitally,” said Dr. Willy Chiu, vice president of High Performance On Demand Solutions. “When implemented broadly, these resources can give Vietnam a competitive edge in the global market.”

Dr. Chiu added, “This is an example of using a new enterprise datacenter infrastructure to support large volume Web-based transactions.”

The portal runs on IBM Idea Factory, a Web 2.0 social software service. The Idea Factory operates in a cloud computing environment and helps virtually connect experts and on-line communities to create ideas, share experiences and debate opinions. Such real-time exchanges save time to destinations. The ability is highly advantageous for geographically distributed communities.

IBM’s service management programs are designed to build technical and business leadership skills with students to promote service innovation. Over the past five years, IBM has been working with more than 150 universities around the world to implement SSME programs and more than 80 universities to establish IT Service Curriculum. Taking a multi-disciplinary approach to education, these programs analyze how factors such as technology, relationship, culture, economics, and processes inform and impact the service business.

IBM’s Academic Initiative, launched in 2004, is an innovative program seeking to advance open standards among the next generation of IT professionals and equip science and technology students with skills to lead the future of the IT industry. For more information on IBM’s Academic Initiative, visit www-304.ibm.com/jct09002c/us/en/university/scholars/academicinitiative/.

For more information on SSME, visit www-304.ibm.com/jct09002c/university/scholars/skills/ssme/index.html.

For more information on ITSC, visit www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/devtool/scholar/web/coursewarePickPage.do?source=ai-course-itservices.

IBM Cloud Computing Milestones

Cloud computing is an information technology infrastructure in which computing resources are virtualized and accessed as a service. IBM has been expanding its cloud computing capabilities around the world. IBM’s first Cloud Computing Center was established in the IBM Almaden Research Center in Silicon Valley in June 2007. IBM launched Europe’s first Cloud Computing Center in Dublin, Ireland on March 19, 2008. Over the past year, IBM has provided cloud computing services to clients such as China Telecom, Wuxi City of China and Sogeti, the Local Professional Services Division of Capgemini. IBM also launched “Blue Cloud,” a series of cloud computing offerings, and entered into partnerships for cloud computing programs with a number of partners in Europe. For more information about IBM cloud computing, visit www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/zones/hipods/.