TRIZ Forum:  Communications
TRIZ & Creativity Education in Vietnam
   Phan Dung (Vietnam National University - Hochiminh City)
       May 18, 1999 and Jul. 15, 1999
buttons guide you to Japanese pages.
Editor's Note (Toru Nakagawa, Jul. 16, 1999):

This page consists of the following four parts:
(1)  Letter from Dr. Phan Dung and a list of enclosed documents (May 18, 1999)
(2)  Nakagawa's response to the contributor (May 26, 1999)
(3)  Editor's memo on the publication arrangements in this site (Jul. 16, 1999)
(4)  Dr. Phan Dung's communication about his activities in Vietnam (Jul. 15, 1999)



(1) Letter from Dr. Phan Dung and a list of enclosed documents (May 18, 1999)

Dear Dr., Prof., Toru Nakagawa

Allow me to introduce myself first.  My name is Phan Dung.  I work as the founder and current director of the Center for Scientific and Technical Creativity (CSTC) belonging to the College of Natural Sciences, Vietnam National University - Hochiminh City.  Through internet I have known that you are interested in TRIZ.  By the way, I have enclosed here with my letter some materials associated with our center's activities in TRIZ field.

I hope that from now on you and I will have opportunities to cooperate, share and exchange ideas and experiences in many issues relating to all aspects of TRIZ.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes to you.

Sincerely yours,

Phan Dung
Ph.D, D.Sc., Director of the CSTC

Address:  Center for Scientific and Technical Creativity,
                  College of Natual Sciences, VNU-HCMC,
                  227 Nguyen Van Cu St., Dist. 5, Hochiminh City, Vietnam
E-Mail:   pdung@hcmuns.edu.vn
Phone:  (848)8301743,     FAX:  (848)8354009
 ---------

A list of enclosed documents:
[1]  Brochure of "Center for Scientific and Technical Creativity (CSTC)"  (1992)
[2]  "Introducing Creativity Methodologies into Vietnam", Phan Dung; Creativity and Innovation Management, Vol. 3, No. 4, Dec. 1994, pp. 240-242.
[3]  "TRIZ:  Inventive Creativity Based on the Laws of Systems Development", Phan Dung, Creativity and Innovation Management, Vol. 4, No. 1, Mar. 1995, pp. 19-30.
[4]  "The Renewal in Creative Thinking Process for Problem Solving and Decision Making", Phan Dung, 6th National Seminar on Educational Management and Leadership, National Inst. of Educational management, Malasia, Dec. 9-12, 1996.
[5]  "Dialectical Systems Thinking for Problem Solving and Decision Making", Phan Dung; 7th Intern'l Conf. on Thinking, June 1-6, 1997, Singapore.
[6]  "On the Basic Program 'Creativity Methodologies for Problem Solving and Decision Making' Being Taught by the CSTC", Phan Dung, in "Creativity's Global Correspondents 1999".




(2) Nakagawa's response to the contributor (May 26, 1999):

Dear Professor Dung,

Thank you very much for your sending me an EMS package of  the information of your CSTC center together with your letter.  I was surprised on receiving it and am very glad after reading your letter and parts of the documents.

I noticed in The TRIZ Experts' Web site that there was some TRIZ activity in Vietnam, but did not know anything more. By reading your articles, I have learned that you are the core person of introducing TRIZ in Vietnam.  I now realize it natural that your country had opportunities of introducing TRIZ directly from USSR in those early days.

I read your articles with much interest, especially, how you learned TRIZ in 1971-1973 from Mr. Altshuller, how you started teaching the Methodology of Creativity, how you established your CSTC and its programs, etc.   Your way of  promoting TRIZ education is very instructive to me.

In Japan, Altshuller's textbook was translated into Japanese and published in 1972.  But the book seems not have gotten popular at that time.  A monthly journal, Nikkei Mechanical, published an introductory paper on TRIZ in March, 1996.  Then the promotion of Invention Machine's software tool started in July, 1997. -- This was the actual start of Japan's introducing TRIZ.  We did not have TRIZ experts before.

So we would like to learn much from your experiences of teaching TRIZ for more than 20 years.

I appreciate it very much that you are kindly offering me the possibilities of our cooperating in all aspects of TRIZ.  Thank you for your kindness.

Since your CSTC activities are very instructive to Japanese readers, could you please let me introduce it in our Web site "TRIZ Home Page in Japan"?

 I am temporarily planning:
(1)  To post your letter in the "TRIZ Forum" page both in English and in Japanese.
(2)  I would like to write a preface (or rather a note after your letter) to introduce your activities and short history of TRIZ introduction in Vietnam.
(3)  Could you allow me to translate your paper "Introducing Creativity Methodologies into Vietnam" (Dec. 1994) into Japanese and post it in our Japanese page?  If you agree,  I will write a letter to the editors of "Creativity and Innovation Management" asking for their permission.   In the English page of "TRIZ Home Page in Japan", I will just write a short preface and cite the original reference, without posting your English paper.

I hope these arrangements would initiate our cooperation effectively.

Thanking you again for your letter and for your interest in our Web site,

With best regards,

Sincerely,

Toru Nakagawa
Editor of "TRIZ Home Page in Japan"



(3) Editor's memo on the publication arrangements in this site (Jul. 16, 1999)

Having got the support by the author, we asked to the journal of "Creativity and Innovation Management" for their  permission of my translating Dr. Phan Dung's two articles into Japanese and posting the translated versions on this Web page.  The publisher of the journal, however, refused to allow any of their articles to be posted in any Web site.

So I recently asked Dr. Phan Dung to wirte a short communication describing the history and current activities of his introducing TRIZ into Vietnam.  His communication is posted below as Part 4, and is translated into Japanese in our Japanese page.  Furthermore, Dr. Phan Dung's two other articles, i.e. [5] and [6] in the above document list, are posted in the English pages of this site, based on the author's request and permission as the copyright holder.  We are very happy to learn about Dr. Phan Dung's educational program in Vietnam [6] and read his introductory paper on TRIZ [5].




(4) Dr. Phan Dung's communication about his activities in Vietnam (Jul. 15, 1999)

Dear Dr. Toru Nakagawa and the readers of the "TRIZ Home Page in Japan",

First of all, I would like to thank Dr. Toru Nakagawa for giving me a chance to write a short communication about our introduction of TRIZ into Vietnam and our current activities on his web site.

I have had many lucky opportunities concerning TRIZ and am very grateful, much obliged to my teacher, Mr. Altshuller and my TRIZ friends from the former Soviet Union (now CIS). The best one was through being trained personally by Mr. Altshuller at the Public Institute of Inventive Creativity (PIIC) which I graduated from with a diploma number 32 in 1973. In 1977, with encouragement from Mr. Altshuller and the experiences based on my use of TRIZ I created and taught the first TRIZ course in Vietnam. Up to now (July 1999) we worked with more than 7000 particitpants (143 courses in all, including basic and intermediate levels) from all economic and social sectors.  Their ages from 15 to 72, educational level from year 9 to Ph.D.

Our Center for Scientific and Technical Creativity (CSTC) has been working from the very beginning as a self-supporting enterprise. In other words, we have encountered and solved a lot of problems relating to organising, teaching, managing, funding and so on. You can guess, namely, TRIZ helped us very much in every step of our Center's growth.

In addition to teaching, we also do some researches on development of TRIZ for all people, irrespective of age, occupation and career so that they can use TRIZ for solving effectively their problems in any situation of their lives.

Judging on the Altshuller's words and my experiences, the Taoist philosophy of the Orient has an advantage in understanding and applying TRIZ. In this meaning, I think, our cultures have the appropriate intrinsic resources for introducing TRIZ into our countries. I believe that TRIZ and other theories initiated by Mr. Altshuller (for example: General Theory of Strong Thinking, Theory of Development of Creative Personalities) will help every person in mankind become happier.

I wish you continued health and continued success.

Phan Dung, Ph.D., D.Sc., Director of the CSTC.
 
 
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Last updated on Jul. 16, 1999.     Access point:  Editor: nakagawa@utc.osaka-gu.ac.jp