Vietnam National University, Hanoi and Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City - The two biggest startup founder nurturers

According to the above research, VNU, Hanoi and VNU, Ho Chi Minh City are the two leading universities in terms of the number of startup founders among their alumni. Specifically, of the 56 Vietnamese startup founders, 6 used to study at VNU, Hanoi, and 5 graduated from VNU, Ho Chi Minh City.

Moscow State University and the University of California with four and three Vietnamese startup founders as their alumni respectively, were listed among the top foreign universities with most startup founders among their alumni.

The highlight of this list is that most of the founders are alumni of top universities in Vietnam (according to the 2017 Webometrics ranking, VNU, Hanoi and Hanoi University of Science and Technology ranked first and second respectively; VNU Ho Chi Minh City ranked fifth).

Contrary to popular belief that founders need background knowledge in technology, the study showed that prior knowledge of IT was not necessary for a startup founder.

Statistics shows that, of the 56 startup founders, 61% of them did not have an IT degree; most of them chose the business major for their study. Specifically, Business Administration, Finance and Economics were the most preferred by the Vietnamese startup founders. For instance, Appota, Foody, Momo, Sendo, Topica, Vật giá (Pricing), Vexere, Thế Giới Di Động (Mobile World), Toong are the startups whose founders used to study business.      

Furthermore, Applied Mathematics – the most popular area of Mathematics, was chosen by a large number of the founders.

The research further showed that while 23 founders got degrees at Vietnamese universities, 33 founders received foreign degrees.

It is interesting to note that most of the founders earned their degrees in Economics from foreign universities. Meanwhile, in technology, most of the founders studied at famous technology universities of Vietnam such as Hanoi University of Science and Technology; Ho Chi Minh City University of Science and Technology; and VNU, Hanoi (IT major).