More than 80 pct of IT workforce has start-up dreams

However, 58 percent said they have never been involved with a startup. Forty one percent had been involved with startups at least once.

They listed artificial intelligence (AI), automated products and blockchain as the top 3 fields they wished to enter.

More than half said they are willing to move overseas if presented with good offers to work for a start-up in blockchain or AI.

A quarter of the respondents said their companies plan to expand into AI or blockchain in the next three years.

Gaku Echizenya, CEO of Navigos Group, which owns executive search company VietnamWorks, said to lessen the danger of a tech brain drain, companies should focus on talent retention, creating good conditions for innovating products and opportunities to come in contact with new technologies.

Now only a small number of enterprises use innovative technologies like AI (19 percent) and blockchain (9 percent), the survey found.

World Economic Forum President Borge Brende has said Vietnam has to proactively pursue technologies related to AI and the Internet of Things as it prepares for the fourth industrial revolution or Industry 4.0 as it is dubbed.

Eighty six percent of the respondents were optimistic about the impacts AI and blockchain would have on human life.

They predicted AI would greatly benefit Vietnam in the next 5-10 years as it can provide people with better solutions after analyzing large data (39 percent); fully automate industry (24 percent) and create smart robots to perform dangerous tasks.

The poll also found that more tech workers want to become specialists with focused skills and knowledge rather than be supervisors with soft and leadership skills.

However, language proficiency was still the biggest limitation for many, with only 27 percent saying they are fluent in speaking, reading and writing English. Eighty four percent of workers in this industry have a bachelor’s or master’s degree or a doctorate.

Earlier this month Vingroup announced the setting up of a research fund worth VND1 trillion ($44 million) for its Institute of Big Data to focus on fields like machine learning and AI.