The Forbes Under 30 Asia Class of 2022 list has honored six Vietnamese representatives in finance, energy, manufacturing, art, and consumer technology.
Nguyen The Vinh, 29, cofounder of Coin98 Finance, has been named in the finance and venture capital category, which listed money flow influencers in Asia's economy.
Coin98 Finance, one of Vietnam’s pioneering startups on blockchain technology, offers products including a crypto wallet and exchange, and has raised $16.5 million in three investment rounds.
In January, Binance Labs announced an undisclosed strategic investment in Coin98. In 2021, it completed a $1.25 million seed round.
Vinh joined Coin98 in 2019, two years after its founding. Starting as a software engineer at FPT Software Ho Chi Minh City, he previously cofounded and managed VIC Group, a cryptocurrency investment startup.
Le Yen Thanh, Nguyen Van Thanh, and Uyen Tran are honored in the industry, manufacturing, and energy category, which “creates the products, methods, and materials of tomorrow”, according to Forbes.
Le Yen Thanh, 27, founded the BusMap project, a Vietnamese public transit application that evolved into smart mobility solutions startup Phenikaa MaaS.
Using BusMap's core technology, it released a Covid-19 information map for 18 provinces. Backed by a $1.5 million investment by Phenikaa, a diversified business group in Vietnam, Phenikaa MaaS plans to expand regionally, starting in Thailand, where it has piloted its solutions in Bangkok and Chiang Mai.
Thanh has won more than 100 awards nationally and internationally for his programming skills.
Nguyen Van Thanh, 29, Deputy CEO of VinBus, is the first Vietnamese public transport provider to use electric buses. The company operates buses made by VinFast, the automotive arm of Vingroup, Vietnam's largest listed conglomerate. VinBus launched its service in Hanoi in 2021 and plans to expand to other cities.
One of the youngest leaders at Vingroup, Thanh joined VinBus in 2019 and focuses on providing affordable and accessible transportation. Previously, he set up his own textile factory at age 18 before dropping out of college to work at companies including KFC Vietnam, Cargill Vietnam and Lazada Vietnam.
Textile-material researcher and designer Uyen Tran, 28, cofounded New York-based TomTex, which makes an eponymous leather alternative.
TomTex is a 100% biobased material created from shell seafood waste or mushroom. It uses a biopolymer called chitin that the company extracts from waste shrimp, crab and lobster shells as well as fish scales gathered by suppliers in Vietnam.
TomTex has won the LVMH Innovation Award, CFDA k11 Innovation Award and Idea Sustainability Award and raised $1.7 million. Uyen holds a master's degree from the Parson School of Design, New York.
Tran Thi Bich Ngoc, 28, appears on the Forbes list in the arts category, which “will create and design the future, from the kitchen to the runway”, the magazine noted.
Tattoo artist Ngoc has been transforming traumatic scars into works of art since 2013, when she was 19.
While tattooing is still considered taboo in Vietnam, she believes covering up scars with artistic tattoos can be a part of the healing process that empowers people, especially women, to start a happier chapter in their lives.
Ngoc completed her master's degree in Motion Pictures Arts and Television from University of Theater and Performing Arts of Hanoi in 2022.
The last Vietnamese representative is Phillip An, 25, cofounder and COO of Homebase, a proptech startup that seeks to simplify the process of buying and selling property using a simple digital interface.
He was honored in the consumer technology category which Forbes believes will create better products for people's daily lives.
Homebase is the first company from Vietnam to be backed by startup accelerator Y Combinator and has raised $30 million in equity and debt funding from investors like Goodwater Capital, Antler and VinaCapital Ventures.
As a computer science graduate from Caltech, Phillip worked at Goldman Sachs and McKinsey and was admitted to Harvard Business School's MBA program.
Over 4,000 nominees applied to be on this year’s list, a record number for Asia. They were selected and vetted by reporters and a group of industry veterans. The 300 honorees were selected based on several criteria like leadership, potential for success, innovation, creativity, and development of business projects.
Twenty-two countries and territories are represented on the list with India ranking first in terms of number of entries (61), followed by Singapore (34), Japan (33), Australia (32), Indonesia (30) and China (28).