On October 30, 2024, the Impact Business Lab 2024 Community Readout was successfully held, marking the end of a 3-month journey of training students with innovative skills to solve the problems of social impact businesses. Co-organized by the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Fulbright University Vietnam and Impact Link Asia, the program helped 5 student teams research, test, and propose solutions to support 5 social impact businesses in 3 areas: Sustainable Agriculture, Wellbeing, and Healthcare

An Open Innovation Program with a Dual Goal: Enhancing students’ innovation skills and Supporting Social Impact Businesses

The Impact Business Lab mission is to cultivate the innovative spirit of students in Ho Chi Minh City while supporting social impact businesses in addressing their challenges.

Diverse challenges were presented to groups of students, requiring interdisciplinary perspectives and a willingness to experiment and take initiative:

• Én Kết Nối – SIB Network: Expand the network of social impact businesses in the Southern region.

• Tinh Bột Kháng Dr.Ruột: Create a market for Dr.Ruột’s new product – Dr. Ruột Kids resistant starch for pregnant women and children aged 1 to 12.

• The Greenmart Vietnam: Increase the number of customers purchasing Greenmart’s Cattails bags.

• Tropical Trekking: Sell the unique value of Tropical Trekking’s product – preserving indigenous culture through trekking activities – to the right customers.

• WagWel: Attract a stable number of young customers to WagWel.

Throughout the program’s three-month duration, the carefully selected 5 teams underwent 3 main phases:

• Problem Deep Dive: Teams conducted in-depth research, including field trips and interviews, to identify gaps in SIBs’ value propositions and customer communications.

• Ideation: Teams developed innovative solutions, leveraging successful case studies and expert guidance.

• Experimentation: Teams tested their solutions and analyzed results to provide actionable recommendations.

After 12 weeks of teamwork, 60 hours of meetings with business representatives, and over 90 hours of coaching, the teams successfully proposed several potential solutions, some of which have been tested and proven effective, for the businesses.

Problem Deep-dive: What is the real root cause?  

At the heart of the program was a rigorous problem deep-dive phase. Teams continuously tested their assumptions through market research, surveys, and in-depth interviews. After each interview round, coaching sessions were held to analyze data, refine questionnaires, and update customer personas.

Teams discussed with trainer on customer segmentation during weekly coaching sessions.

Teams went on field trips to better understand customer experience

Teams went on field trips to better understand customer experience

This is also when the “Aha” moments started appearing. A member of the Dr. Ruột team shared: “The real value of deep diving into a problem is when you immerse yourself in the company’s product and understand who it truly suits. With Dr. Ruột, after countless conversations with Mr. Dương and interviews with expectant mothers, we realized that the true value of Dr. Ruột Kids is in prevention and as a daily meal replacement. However, Dr.  Ruột was marketing the product as a cure. Once we found the core issue, the solution naturally appeared. Everything from product packaging, pricing, to marketing needed to be adjusted to convey the product’s value to the right customer group.”

Sparking Innovation: From Challenges to Solutions

With a deeper understanding of the problems, teams began brainstorming innovative solutions to address the identified gaps. This was where they could play around with different types of ideas and suggest diverse ways to tackle different aspects of the same problem. The solutions would then be pitched to SIBs so that SIBs could choose the most feasible and important solutions to run experiments.

Brainstorming space for teams’ creative solutions

Thành viên của WagWel chia sẻ: “Trong quá trình thiết kế giải pháp, chúng mình đã xem qua vô số các trang Instagram và Facebook của các tổ chức cứu trợ động vật ở cả Việt Nam và trên toàn thế giới để học hỏi từ phương thức truyền thông của họ. Điểm thú vị nằm ở việc chúng mình được thấy các cách tiếp cận đa dạng cho cùng một mục tiêu, và học cách áp dụng các mô hình thành công trên thế giới sao cho phù hợp với cách thức hoạt động của WagWel và chân dung khách hàng tại Việt Nam.”

Experimentation: A Journey of Discovery and Adaptation

The experimentation phase came with moments of discovery as teams watched their solutions unfold in real-world settings. As they gathered data and analyzed results, teams could either successfully validate and invalidate their assumptions, or run into dead ends. That was when they modified their experiments and ran another batch of surveys and quick interviews to see why their solutions did not work. This led to a cycle of modification and re-experimentation, allowing teams to refine their solutions and achieve better outcomes.

Teams filmed videos for their experiments

A member of The Greenmart Vietnam shared: “Through the Impact Business Lab, we realized that experiments need to be constantly adjusted to validate our assumptions. When we ran test stories and posts on Greenmart’s Facebook page, the data we collected was quite vague. So, we decided to run an additional test that wasn’t in our original plan, which was to share posts in relevant community groups, like groups of people interested in grass bags, nature, and a green lifestyle. As a result, our post received over 1700 interactions and 69 comments asking about the bag. From there, we successfully validated our assumption that the design and function of the bag, along with the accompanying cultural story, are factors that attract potential customers to Greenmart.”

Community Readout: The End of the Journey

IBL ended with a Community Readout, where student teams shared their experiences, insights, and outcomes from their work with SIBs. The presentations showcased the teams’ problem-solving journey, including their research findings, innovative solutions, and lessons learned from real-world experimentation.

Here, Mr. Nguyen Tuan Duong, Founder and Director of Tinh bot kháng Dr. Ruột, shared: “When I proposed the issue of Dr. Ruột Kids, our new product line, the organizers said, ‘We will solve this problem.’ Honestly, I was a bit surprised at that time, and I asked them: ‘Is this beyond your capabilities? Is 3 months enough to solve this problem?’ But after a 3-month journey, those doubts were erased. I am very grateful because the organizers not only opened up many new ideas for our business to unlock the flow of Dr. Ruột Kids, but also gave the students a valuable learning opportunity. If there had been a program like this when I was a student, I would have developed much more than just Dr. Ruột as it is now.”

Community Readout of Impact Business Lab 2024

While the first batch of Impact Business Lab has concluded, our journey towards open innovation continues. We look forward to inspiring future generations of innovators to drive positive social change.

About the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI)

The CEI, Fulbright University Vietnam’s first center, aims to instill the spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation at the heart of the Fulbright culture and training program. CEI offers various entrepreneurship and innovation training events to Vietnam and the region for Fulbright students and other communities, including students, experts, entrepreneurs, and enterprises. CEI plans to expand its collaboration with Fulbright University Vietnam, nurturing and supporting business