Young lecturer brings Vietnamese AI to the world

Graduating with a degree in information technology engineering in 2024, Bui Xuan Canh turned down many job offers with "huge" salaries from artificial intelligence (AI) companies to remain a full-time lecturer at Lac Hong University.

Lecturer Bui Xuan Canh and students present the Your Voice Project at the VietFuture Awards 2025 and are nominated to represent Vietnam at the Cintana Global Competition 2025 held in the United States. Photo: Cong Nghia

Young lecturer Bui Xuan Canh is currently the recipient of numerous AI-related awards at both the national and international levels. He is also preparing to travel to Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), to receive an award from the UAE government for AI projects that have a positive impact on the community.

The courage of young people in the digital age

Bui Xuan Canh's journey from a high school student in the sunny, windy Central Highlands to a university lecturer at 22 is not a matter of chance, but the result of a clear, practical, career-oriented mindset.

After graduating from high school, faced with attractive opportunities at major training centers in Ho Chi Minh City, Bui Xuan Canh made a decisive choice to enroll in Dong Nai instead. At the time, this decision may have seemed risky, but it reflected the vision of a young person unafraid to go against the crowd in search of the environment best suited to him.

However, the transition from a high school setting to a university-level research mindset was a considerable shock. In the early days of entering the engineering program, Canh had to confront a vast and dry body of knowledge in advanced mathematics and abstract programming algorithms. Rather than giving up or settling for the bare minimum to pass, Canh chose to face the challenge head-on by turning the university’s laboratory into his "second home." He devoted all his free time to exploring, decoding lines of code, and searching for foreign materials. It was through this process of self-directed learning, relentless effort, and iron discipline that Canh not only overcame academic pressure but also gradually developed independent thinking and sharp critical reasoning skills.

A significant turning point affirming Bui Xuan Canh's remarkable growth in professional thinking was marked by the Excellent Application Game award at a large-scale technology competition held in Guangzhou (China), which brought together hundreds of teams from across the region. To make his product stand out, Canh went beyond graphic techniques and collision-processing algorithms, dedicating months to in-depth research on Chinese culture at the Library of Oriental Studies to "breathe life" into every detail and setting in the game. The intellectual fusion of modern virtual reality technology and the depth of traditional culture enabled Canh's product to win over the international judging panel and earn a special award.

Not limiting himself to the scope of a conventional software programmer, Bui Xuan Canh proactively expanded his influence by becoming a "chief engineer" in technology, providing strong support to student teams in the Mechatronics - Electronics fields at the school. His participation in key arenas such as Robocon, the Shell Eco-marathon Asia, and self-driving car development played a vital role in solving complex challenges in central control algorithms, enabling systems to operate with greater precision and intelligence.

Lecturer Bui Xuan Canh and students develop the Your Voice application.

Aspiration to "popularize" AI technology for the community

The breakthrough project that brought Bui Xuan Canh recognition in the AI community is the Your Voice application, a comprehensive two-way communication support solution for the hearing-impaired. Arising from careful observations in real life and humanitarian inspiration from the movie Twinkling Watermelon, Canh recognized that the community of over 2.5 million hearing-impaired individuals in Vietnam faces invisible yet severe barriers in accessing information, finding employment, and integrating into society. He believes that AI technology should not remain abstract theories in scientific journals, but must be "popularized" as a powerful, low-cost tool to address the most urgent social welfare challenges.

To build an accurate and diverse dataset for training the AI model, Canh's research team spent many days living and working alongside teachers and students at the Center for Nurturing Disabled Children in Dong Nai Province (Bien Hoa Ward). In terms of specialized technology, Your Voice is a complex integration of Computer Vision techniques to detect and analyze hand gestures in 3D space, and Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology to convert them into Vietnamese text or speech in real time. The most unique and innovative feature of the application is its two-way communication capability: hearing-impaired individuals "speak" with their hands, and hearing individuals can "hear" them. Conversely, the system instantly translates spoken language into sign language via a 3D virtual character (Avatar), eliminating communication barriers.

I want to devote my entire youth to developing more practical AI projects that serve the Vietnamese community, while also introducing these products to the global AI community to affirm the strength of Vietnamese intelligence. For me, the ultimate goal is to apply AI to humanitarian purposes, delivering tangible benefits to society, especially to vulnerable groups.

Lecturer BUI XUAN CANH, Lac Hong University

With its strong practical applicability and profound humanitarian value, the Your Voice project impressively outperformed thousands of strong contenders from developed countries at the Intel AI Global Impact Festival, organized by Intel Corporation (USA). Earlier, the project had received an award in the United States. Building on that success, Your Voice has attracted the attention of the Government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which has cordially invited the project's creator, Bui Xuan Canh, to receive the AI for Community Award in early February.

Associate Professor Dr Lam Thanh Hien, Rector of the university, affirmed: Successfully retaining talents like young lecturer Bui Xuan Canh is part of the strategy to build a high-quality next-generation workforce, in service of the goal of training high-quality digital human resources for Dong Nai province.

By Cong Nghia - Translated by Mai Nga, Minho