IBM and Five9 join forces to promote cognitive computing in Vietnam

US tech giant IBM and Five9 Vietnam, a local private telecoms and software company, have just announced they will work together on cloud services to bring cognitive computing to enterprises and organisations across Vietnam.

Accordingly, Five9 is the first organisation in Vietnam to tap into Watson APIs on IBM Bluemix to create and bring to life solutions that transform industries and society, starting with the banking and finance sector, healthcare and television.

Also as part of the event, Five9 announced a training partnership in cognitive computing with four top universities in computer science education in Vietnam and inked deals with three first businesses in Vietnam to propel the application into life.

Through a variety of agreements, IBM and Five9 will help businesses, educators, researchers, startup entrepreneurs and users in Vietnam gain access to artificial intelligence applications, while provide opportunities for many generations of developers to enhance their skills related to artificial intelligence and promote innovation.

The agreement with IBM will establish Five9 as the first company in Vietnam to build apps with cognitive capabilities that analyse unstructured data collected from social media to understand customer needs.

“Cognitive application is still new in the world. Together with IBM, Five9 will implement cognitive computing technology in Vietnam on a comprehensive scale, hoping to contribute to breakthrough changes in all aspects of life and the economy,” said Nguyen Trong Huan, chairman of Five9.

“The adoption of AI and cognitive computing for the delivery of improved personalised services is constantly increasing. Cognitive technology is not only about AI systems that can learn, reason and process natural languages, but also augment human intelligence and performance to make smarter business decisions,” said Eric Yeo, IBM Vietnam country general manager.

“By collaborating with Five9 in the delivery of cognitive capabilities, IBM hopes to empower a community of ‘cognitive builders’ in Vietnam, and change the way people in Vietnam extend their expertise across any domain of knowledge to solve complex problems,” he added.

Through the new partnership, Five9 will also have access to IBM’s global network of technical and industry expertise, education, mentoring and enterprise customers and business partners, all of which can help to bring new and innovative cognitive products to Vietnam’s market quickly.

Also at the event, Five9 closed deals with three businesses in Vietnam, the first of many - VTVlive, OneNet and state-owned Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam’s Hanoi’s Hoai Duc branch- to launch cognitive computing applications for real life uses.

On the same day (April 20), at the Government Office Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam received IBM Vietnam and Five9 Vietnam top leaders on the occasion these two firms announced of solution applications and the deployment of cognitive and AI training in Vietnam.

At the working session, Dam congratulated the IBM workgroup led by IBM vice president Zane Adam.

Dam said that the Vietnamese government has paid a growing attention to AI application into addressing Vietnam’s diverse socioeconomic development needs, particularly in the fields of healthcare, education and transport.

The government is penning a pilot project on AI application in state management, and will soon call for domestic and foreign businesses and also startups to contribute input in the form of comments, as well as technology and training support to the project.

The project objective is to create a chance for people to freely access latest technology applications and data, particularly in three above-said priority fields.