Vice-chairman of the city’s people’s committee Vo Duy Khuong said the MoU was part of Microsoft Vietnam’s start-up support programme called “CLAS Expara Startup Accelerator.”

Following the agreement signed in HCM City last week, Microsoft Vietnam will support individuals and organisations in the city in developing the capacity of their business start-ups.

The central city established its Entrepreneurship Support Company last year to help young people develop opportunities and ideas for starting a business.

Director of Microsoft Vietnam Vu Minh Tri said the MoU was a result of their longstanding co-operation to support young individuals and groups in the central region.

Da Nang is also collecting the names of 100 individuals and groups as “seeds” for start-up business programmes.

The city educates 80,000 students, of which nearly 23,000 graduate from colleges every year.

In 2014, Microsoft Vietnam and the Da Nang University jointly debuted the Information Technology (IT) Academy, the first-ever IT training centre to meet international standards in the central and Central Highlands regions.

The academy aims to set up a data centre on a private cloud, provide Microsoft 365 applications to educational centres in the region and boost the university’s Software Development Centre as a Microsoft-authorised education reseller and member of the Microsoft IT Academy.