Google CEO Sundar Pichai had tea with Flappy Bird developer Nguyen Ha Dong at a small drink stall on Nha Chung Street in Hanoi on December 22 as part of the Google PR efforts in Vietnam.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai (right) had tea with Flappy Bird developer Nguyen Ha Dong at a small drink stall on Nha Chung Street in Hanoi on December 22 during his first trip to Vietnam.
Instead of coming into a luxurious lounge, the two famous IT men chose to meet at a street stall. They talked for about 30 minutes before Sundar Pichai met with about 200 Vietnamese software developers and IT students to make a pitch to woo Vietnamese online users and convince them to plug into the company’s Gmail and YouTube services.
Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai is making his first official visit to Vietnam since taking the position at Google last August, with an effort to drum up customer growth in the emerging market.
Earlier that day, Pichai met with Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung to discuss the Mountain View California company’s long-term plans for the Southeast Asian nation’s market.
At the meeting, the Prime Minister lauded Google’s global fame and brand, especially its contributions to popularising knowledge and increasing information and education access for people worldwide.
Vietnam is experiencing a “golden population structure,” Dung said, adding that 52 percent of the 93-million population have internet access and most of them use Google.
Dung highlighted Vietnam’s market economy, intensive integration, economic, trade and investment ties with almost all economies globally, and the country’s incentives for the information technology sector.
Pichai applauded Vietnam’s development as well as its great potential for IT development.
He expressed his hope that Google would have more opportunities to expand its operations in the Southeast Asian nation following the signing of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement to which Vietnam has concluded negotiations.
He revealed that his group will implement a number of projects to help Vietnam train IT engineers and experts, promote the country’s tourism and support small and medium-sized enterprises in entering the world market via e-commerce.
Google expects that Vietnam will become one of the group’s most important markets, he said, pledging to work harder in the time ahead to further contribute to the country’s socio-economic and IT development.
Pichai grew up in India in the southern city of Chennai and studied at the renowned Indian Institute of Technology. He has risen quickly through Google’s ranks since joining the company in 2004.