On November 20th 2008, the Prime Minister promulgated the document No 2011/TTg-QHQT regarding the agreement for Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) to receive the following: "A pilot project to improve the use of computers and public Internet access in Vietnam" by Bill&Melinda Gates Foundation (BMG Fund) - an American non-governmental organisation with a donation of 2.149.100 USD.
Accordingly, this project is being carried out over 18 months (from 2/2009 to 7/2010) in 3 provinces Thai Nguyen, Nghe An and Tra Vinh by The Fund of Public Telecommuniation Services, Ministry of Information and Communication.
The deployment of this project with other plans of Vietnamese Government will give people in rural areas the opportunity to receive many benefits from the services that come from Information and Communication, which will reduce the gap between urban and rural areas as well as eliminate hunger and poverty.
This project is being carried out in 99 public Internet accesses locations such as, post offices, libraries, schools, hospitals, and People Committee Offices. The selected locations are equipped with computers and specialized devices for access to the Internet and information to help people in these places to have a better standard of living.
This project will connect 705 computers with wide band Internet to 99 selected places, to educate managers, and teach people how to use computers to search for information, in addition to educating people on the policy of the Communist Party, the Ministry of Information and Communication and the Government's public services.
In Thai Nguyen, the Project management has had some meetings with government and leaders in different professional fields and has had other meetings with people in rural areas to deploy the project. In July and August, 2009, the Project management set up an advertising campagn by hanging up banners in centres to inform people in 24 communities and offices, of this project.
Ms. Deborah Jacobs – Deputy Director, Global Libraries for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has said " Internet use will give people a tool and information to improve the economy, education and society. This is the first time for the Global Library of BMG Fund to have a project in Asia and to finance a branch in
