Taipei, Dec. 27 (CNA) Taiwan's Institute for Information Industry (III) signed an agreement with Vietnam's Advanced International Joint Stock Company (AIC) on Thursday to help build integrated solutions for smart classrooms in Vietnam.

Under the agreement, the AIC plans to build 2,000 smart classrooms using products made by Taiwanese firms, such as Acer Inc.'s notebook computers, BenQ Corp.'s projectors, HaBook Information Technology Inc.'s electronic whiteboards, and Hebron Soft Ltd.'s online English tutoring services.

The III will help the AIC to integrate these hardware products with e-learning software and knowledge management systems to help drive the popularity of e-learning in Vietnam, representatives from the institute said.

Tsai I Chang, director of the Digital Education Institute at the III, pointed out at a news conference that this agreement is just the first step for Taiwanese suppliers to tap into Vietnam's e-learning market.

The Vietnamese government plans to build 8,000 more of these smart classrooms across 650 schools during the next stage of its 15-year e-learning project, which is estimated to generate an output value of more than NT$10 billion (US$344 million), he remarked.

(By Jeffrey Wu)
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