[Vacets] Fw: VACETS Election Schedule

[Hung Nguyen]

Attached is anh Hu`ng Nguyen answers to the Q&A, one of the candidates...

1) Membership fee: Should we institute a membership fee for VACETS? why or
why not?

The health of an organization depends greatly on its leadership and the
amount of funding it has to fulfill prescribed mission and goals, VACETS is
no different.  At this time, VACETS, as an organization, is in the
re-initiation phase.  Currently attracting new member is one of VACETS's
primary goals.  Membership fee should only be instituted when VACETS
provides value added services to its members.

2) How to encourage others to participate in VACETS activities? Most members
of VACETS (may be except student members) are accomplished professional with
busy work and family life's, what can VACETS do to attract and keep them
involved and interested? And how do we start?

The formation of VACETS initially will be amongst a circle of friends,
associates and acquaintances whose values, beliefs and common goals for the
organization are similar.  The challenges of attracting new member and
encourage the participation in VACETS activities reside with every member.
Through the core group of committed and seasoned professionals, objectives
and activities which could provide opportunity for personal growth and at
the same time provide non-political driven community services (e.g. directly
or indirectly assist victims of Katrina).

Similar to any start up business, I would recommend for us to start with
small but achievable goals and objectives while solicit private donations
and other means to raise capitals to operate.  It is true to the fact that
we all are very busy with our personal life outside of our professional
life.  I believe if each one of us is willing to share a fraction of our
time, we could achieve marketable results to attract new members.  Let me
borrow the phrase from a Vietnamese folk saying " Mo^.t ca^y l`am cha(?ng
ne^n non, hai ca^y chu.m la.i la`m h`on n'ui cao" to illustrate the fact
that team work does works.
.
3) VACETS is mostly an Internet organization, and for that to work, we need
a better presence on the Internet. In the past we have our website and the
many forums (fora ?). Most of the time the website is out of date (and the
look is kind of boring) because we don't have dedicate resource to maintain
and support it. Most of the forums are also dormant because of lack of
interest or lack of resource to keep it interesting. How would you propose
we correct this?

The disadvantage of being an on-line organization also serves as an
advantage for VACETS's leadership and its members.  For this effort, I would
propose for VACETS to look at the vastly untapped the next generation of
professionals currently being educated in universities and colleges across
the globes.  I believe these talented and creative professionals could
contribute effectively to VACETS's Internet presence and at the same
personally benefit from designing, implementing and maintaining a technology
oriented e-Commerce website.  The seeds are also planted for the next
generation of VACETS's leadership through these professionals.

4) No funding source: without a membership fee or any other source of
funding we have been struggling to organize any activity (e.g. VTIC &
Technical Journal) and have been depending on volunteers and hit/miss
corporate sponsorships. What are your plans for future activities and how do
we pay for them?

Funding source is always a challenge for any organization.  VACETS will have
to compete with other organizations for funding to operate.  Private
companies and contributors would like to see their contributed funds money
goes into causes which have great impacts to the community under their
sponsorship.  The initial funding request will be probably the most
difficult and challenging part for elected VACETS's leadership.  To be
successful, VACETS need a solid plan with achievable objectives and
measurable metrics to ensure continuous funding besides funding net benefits
from technical journal and conferences.

5) Marketing: Most of Vietnamese professionals do not know VACETS. We have
been recruiting them mostly by words of mouth. It is a chicken and egg
problem: without a good membership we will not be known but if we are not
known then it's difficult to attract the membership. How do you propose we
break this cycle?

I believe initially the VACETS core will be formed through a circle of
friends, associates and acquaintances.  At universities and colleges across
the nation, there almost always exist a Vietnamese Student Association (VSA)
which we could form alliances into helping VACETS.  In return, VACETS needs
to identify projects or activities which could help local VSA members
beginning the journey of their professional life.

1.  What do you think should be short-term (6-mo or so) objectives for
Vacets?  What steps should be taken for us to get there?  Please be
specific.

The short-term objectives for VACETS should be concentrated on the
following:
1.      Form the formal organization
2.      Identify its mission
3.      Identify its strategic goals
4.      Identify its near term objectives
5.      Identify a strategy for recruiting new members
6.      Identify requires budget for operations base on defined near term
objectives.

2.  How would you go about recruiting new members considering Vacets'
limited resource? Some brought it up and rightfully so that we need to
attract college students etc. In your view, what do we have to offer them?

Like my answers above, college professionals should be an integral, if not a
major, part of VACETS.  Many of the established professionals are moving on
with the next stage of life.  We would like to encourage for those
professionals to serve in the pioneering or mentor role for the next
generation.  VACETS should serves as a mind or combined experience bank for
college professionals.  VACETS should present itself as a learning
organization where provoking thoughts and ideas are constantly challenged.


3.  Vacets has noble cause but good cause alone can't move an organization.
We need means for participation.  Besides tech conferences, what other
programs or activities on or off line do you think can attract interest of,
if not galvanize, geographically diverse (and busy) members?

I believe in scheduled a monthly panel discussion series with variety of
topics regarding technologies or other topics which could help VACETS
current and future members in the personally or professionally (politics
should not be one of them).  Since all VACETS members are geographically
disperse, I would encourage the use of net meeting or streaming media to
deliver on-line or pre-recorded sessions.  To keep VACETS interesting to
members, VACETS leadership should also explore on-line training for members
similar to that of IEEE's.

Again thanks for your time and spirit of volunteerism.

Chanh

----- Original Message -----
From: "hung nguyen" <hnguyenmd at yahoo.com>
To: "Hung Nguyen" <hunguyen57 at cox.net>
Cc: "Dat Nguyen" <dnguyen at hms.harvard.edu>; <nguyend at sigmaxi.org>;
<hnguyenmd at yahoo.com>; <thnguyen at llnl.gov>; "Christopher Pham"
<chpham at cisco.com>; "Ban Tran" <ban_tran at ml.com>; <hbui at smbiplaw.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 10, 2005 3:26 PM
Subject: Re: VACETS Election Schedule


> Hello Hu+ng
>
> Thanks to anh Luc and anh Chanh for their challenging
> quesions.  Attached are my replies to anh Luc and anh
> Chanh questions.
>
> Thank you and have a great weekend.
> Hung :  )
>
>
>
> --- Hung Nguyen <hunguyen57 at cox.net> wrote:
>
> > Candidates,
> >
> > Please disregard the attachments if you have seen
> > and replied to the questions.
> >
> > I also would like to remind the candidates that the
> > current schedule is
> >
> >     -  August 22  - September 2 : Q&A with
> > candidates
> >     - September 5  - September 9 : summary by
> > candidates
> >     - September 12 - September 16: voting
> >
> > This we will begin voting next week, and this forum
> > will be closed by then.
> >
> > Thanks
> > Hu+ng Nguyen
> > Chair,  2005 VACETS Election Committee
> > > From: "LTN" <luc2503 at gmail.com>
> > To: "'Hung Nguyen'" <hunguyen57 at cox.net>
> > Subject: Questions for Candidates
> > Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2005 13:36:32 -0400
> >
> > Hello Candidates,
> >
> > There are a few questions that have been raised
> > several times by various
> > members of VACETS. They have been discussed but no
> > conclusion has been
> > reached. As candidates for the VACETS board, please
> > give us your opinion,
> > and plan for these issues:
> >
> > 1) Membership fee: Should we institute a membership
> > fee for VACETS? why or
> > why not?
> > 2) How to encourage others to participate in VACETS
> > activities? Most members
> > of VACETS (may be except student members) are
> > accomplished professional with
> > busy work and family life's, what can VACETS do to
> > attract and keep them
> > involved and interested? And how do we start?
> > 3) VACETS is mostly an Internet organization, and
> > for that to work, we need
> > a better presence on the Internet. In the past we
> > have our website and the
> > many forums (fora ?). Most of the time the website
> > is out of date (and the
> > look is kind of boring) because we don't have
> > dedicate resource to maintain
> > and support it. Most of the forums are also dormant
> > because of lack of
> > interest or lack of resource to keep it interesting.
> > How would you propose
> > we correct this?
> > 4) No funding source: without a membership fee or
> > any other source of
> > funding we have been struggling to organize any
> > activity (e.g. VTIC &
> > Technical Journal) and have been depending on
> > volunteers and hit/miss
> > corporate sponsorships. What are your plan for
> > future activities and how do
> > we pay for them?
> > 5) Marketing: Most of Vietnamese professionals do
> > not know VACETS. We have
> > been recruiting them mostly by words of mouth. It is
> > a chicken and egg
> > problem: without a good membership we will not be
> > known but if we are not
> > known then it's difficult to attract the membership.
> > How do you propose we
> > break this cycle?
> >
> > Thank you for your responses.
> >
> > Luc Nguyen
> > > Subject: RE: [Vacets] VACETS Q&A Period Begins
> > Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2005 14:17:54 -0400
> > From: "Cao, Chanh" <ccao at ciena.com>
> > To: <vacets at vacets.org>
> > CC:
> >
> >
> >
> > Congratulations to all candidates and thanks for
> > standing for election.  Could you please share your
> > thoughts on the following.
> >
> > 1.  What do you think should be short-term (6-mo or
> > so) objectives for Vacets?
> > What steps should be taken for us to get there?
> > Please be specific.
> >
> > 2.  How would you go about recruiting new members
> > considering Vacets' limited resource?
> > Some brought it up and rightfully so that we need to
> > attract college students etc.
> > In your view, what do we have to offer them?
> >
> > 3.  Vacets has noble cause but good cause alone
> > can't move an organization.  We need means for
> > participation.
> > Besides tech conferences, what other programs or
> > activities on or off line do you think can attract
> > interest of, if not galvanize, geographically
> > diverse (and busy) members?
> >
> > Again thanks for your time and spirit of
> > volunteerism.
> >
> > Chanh
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: vacets-bounces at mail.saigon.com
> > [mailto:vacets-bounces at mail.saigon.com]On Behalf Of
> > Hung Nguyen
> > Sent: Monday, August 22, 2005 11:28 AM
> > To: vacets at vacets.org
> > Cc: Ban Tran; hnguyenmd at yahoo.com;
> > nguyend at sigmaxi.org
> > Subject: [Vacets] VACETS Q&A Period Begins
> >
> >
> > Dear VACETS Membership:
> >
> > As shown in the schedule below, the time for
> > candidate Q&A has started. We will have the Q&A on
> > this forum for 2 weeks, followed by by candidate
> > summaries starting September 9th.
> >
> > We will then start voting 12-16 September on another
> > forum to be set up for this purpose. The candidate
> > who receive the most vote will be the
> > President-Elect and the other four candidates will
> > serve in the Board of Directors. The results will be
> > tallied and announced around September 19th.
> >
> > In preparation for the questions, I have included
> > the the 5 alphabetically sorted cadidate forms
> > received for your review. Please take the time to
> > read each of these forms as they represent the
> > candidate positions and their visions for VACETS in
> > the year to come.
> >
> > Have fun and please contact me if you have any
> > question about the election.
> >
> > Thanks
> > Hu+ng Nguyen
> > VACETS Election Chair
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------
> > VACETS Ðơn ứng cử / Candidate Form
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________________________________
> > 1. Tên Họ / Full name (Family, Given, Middle will
> > all diacritical accents): Ðạt William Huy
> > Nguyá».n
> >
> > 2. Phái / Gender (Male/Female - Nam/Nữ): Male
> >
> > 3. ÐỠ> > dnguyen at hms.harvard.edu or nguyend at sigmaxi.org
> >
> > 4. Nghề nghi�p / Professional position:
> > Scientist
> >
> > 5. NÄfm gia nhập VACETS / year joined VACETS: 2005
> >
> > 6. SÆ¡ lược nghề nghiá»?p và  hoạt Ä'á»Tng
> > trong VACETS / short biography and summary of
> > activities in VACETS: I am an Alfred P. Sloan
> > Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard University. The
> > main theme of my current research at Harvard is to
> > develop theory and mathematical methods for
> > understanding the design principles in biological
> > systems. From 1999-2002, as an institutional
> > pre-doctoral fellow at the Lawrence Livermore
> > National Laboratory, my research then was on (1) the
> > theoretical study of principles underlying the
> > functions of biological molecules such as protein,
> > RNA and DNA, and (2) the development of the
> > linear-scaling parallel algorithm for massive
> > parallel computations of many frontier problems in
> > computational physics, chemistry and biology. >From
> > 1996-2002, as a doctoral student at the University
> > of California-Davis, I was one of the first to
> > introduce the concept that some proteins can attain
> > their functions only if they have multiple,
> > thermally accessible free energy states, which is
> > recently becoming accepted as a new biological
> > paradigm by the scientific community. In addition,
> > my research then also shed light into the molecular
> > biomechanics of RNA folding/packing of small
> > molecules; and the effect of  electrostatics of
> > highly charged RNA molecules on the electronic
> > structure of small molecules. This year, I helped
> > organize and chair a session on computational
> > biology at the VTICâ?T05.
> >
> > 7. Học vấn / Education: Alfred P. Sloan
> > Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University (2002- ),
> > Ph.D. in Theoretical Chemistry, University of
> > California-Davis (2002), M.S. in Computer Science
> > with emphasis in Mathematics, UC-Davis (2002), B.S.
> > with highest honors in Chemistry, UC-Davis (1996).
> >
> > 8. Tên (e-mail) các há»Ti viên VACETS ủng há»T
> > ứng cử viên / E-mail of VACETS members who
> > endorse your candidacy ... Optional
> >
> > 9. Lập trường và chương trình cho VACETS /
> > Position statement about VACETS: Vietnamese
> > scientists and professionals have made significant
> > contributions to the overall wealth of the American
> > economy from many disciplines, despite their short
> > presence in the United States for about 30 years or
> > so. However, most of these contributions come from
> > the individual experts, not from the group.
> > Accordingly, the impact of oneâ?Ts contribution to
> > the society is quite often limited and not visible
> > at the national arena, and the synergistic power of
> > collaboration among  Vietnamese experts simply does
> > not exist. In addition, our contributions to the
> > society are not recognized appropriately at the
> > level that they should be, simply because we have no
> > political force behind us that can promote our
> > strength and contribution, which often come from
> > nominations from the peers. To date, there are only
> > a handful of organizations such as VACETS and VNAUP
> > exist.  Because the goals of these organizations are
> > mostly to promote friendships among Vietnamese
> > scientists and professionals, they are limited by
> > the scope of what they can actually do. In addition,
> > these organizations are often small, structurally
> > fragmented, lack of unity and the necessary level of
> > enthusiasm from members, and have no clear political
> > objective.  Therefore, practically speaking we do
> > not have any viable organization to represent us at
> > all.
> >
> > I believe that VACETSâ?T most important mission in
> > the near terms should be to unite all Vietnamese
> > scientists and professionals in order to form a
> > strong and united social network, and to provide a
> > fertile ground on which people can (1) form
> > collaborations or partnerships (possibly via annual
> > retreat/meeting); (2) help each others (possibly via
> > some sort of online group discussion); (3) and
> > develop leadership skills (organizing conference,
> > fundraising, social events, etc.). While marching
> > toward these objectives, the organization can use
> > its political and social network to (1) further
> > recruit new members (possible via local college
> > chapters), and (2) help raise the public awareness
> > of our strength and contribution to the American
> > society. This can be done via a variety of means
> > such as publications in the paper and electronic
> > media, which in my view are absolutely necessary for
> > the credibility of any viable organization. These
> > are a few goals that I believe VACETS can achieve
> > within a few years, and I intend to help revitalize
> > the VACETS mission and objective.
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________________________________
> > 1. Tên Họ / Full name (Family, Given, Middle will
> > all diacritical accents): Hùng Ngọc Nguyá».n
> >
> > 2. Phái / Gender (Male/Female - Nam/Nữ): Nam
> >
> > 3. ÐỠ> > hnguyenmd at yahoo.com
> >
> > 4. Nghề nghi�p / Professional position:
> > Director, Network & Security Engineering Division,
> > US Department of Treasury.
> >
> > 5. NÄfm gia nhập VACETS / year joined VACETS: 2005
> >
> > 6. SÆ¡ lược nghề nghiá»?p và  hoạt Ä'á»Tng
> > trong VACETS / short biography and summary of
> > activities
> === message truncated ===>
> _______________________________________________
> > Vacets mailing list
> > Vacets at mail.saigon.com
> > http://mail.saigon.com/mailman/listinfo/vacets
> >
>
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