Vietnamese version: here
Recently emerged on the timeline, a tremendous flood inflicted by Typhoon Matmo invaded the Northern side of Vietnam, and left countless consequences to the people, especially the vulnerable in Thai Nguyen.
Witnessing the gut-wrenching canvas and sensing the urge to help people in need, a handful of young people have taken advantage of the power of Technology and AI to bridge the people via thongtincuutro.org.
In the lineup of musketeers, there is a Forwardian. Here, MFV is honored to invite Jackman (Từ Tất Huân) - Senior Software Engineer (Golang) to spend some minutes exclusively unveiling more implicit stories of his pragmatic initiative.
Absolutely rushed. I completed the first version of the project in just five hours overnight.
Why just 5 hours? Part of the luck that it was possible is that it was based on another side project I had just developed, "vntraffic.app" Coincidentally, that initial application was also built in five hours while I got stuck in a traffic jam during a recent storm.
At that moment, the development team only had 2 members. Had we done this manually, I think we would have finished it in 2 days. (laugh). Or worse, the process would have been postponed or terminated due to the vast pool of data that couldn’t be promptly processed.
My top priority was never perfection; it was always User Focus. Visible pain points include: how can I make it as easy as possible for people in flooded areas to share information, and how can I ensure it uses very little of their mobile data?
To achieve this in a short time, I aggregated posts, comments from social media, then leveraged the power of AI to handle data processing and accelerate parts of the development process.
Professional and Speed can be 2 sides of the same coin, some people may think.
However, my experience at Money Forward has shown me the opposite is true: being Professional actually creates Speed. A methodical and well-structured work process makes development much more efficient. It helps me avoid the wasted time that comes from the mistakes of being 'fast but careless'.
In everything I do, both in my work and personal life, I always look for a sense of purpose.
At MFV, I find the meaning in helping businesses operate more smoothly and reliably. With my personal projects, the motivation is more direct—I focus on solving real problems for the people around me.
When my partner and I first had the idea, we faced a huge problem: neither of us had any rescue experience. Because of that, the only “directory” was to focus completely on the user. We set a clear goal to make the process as simple as possible and built a tool to fit their actual situation.
This 'User Focus' immediately helped us decide what not to do.
We didn't build an app because it would take too long to develop and be too large for people to download on the fragile networks common in disaster areas. We also avoided using forms because that would require manual effort and waste precious time.
Instead, we noticed people were already posting and commenting for help on Facebook. So, we decided to meet them where they were. We built a system that automatically found the information they were already sharing, without asking them to do anything new.
This approach had another huge advantage: Facebook automatically retries sending posts when the connection is unstable, which solved the very real problem of poor internet in those areas.
"You don't have to solve a difficult problem to create value. Sometimes, the most fitting solution is a simple one that doesn't take much time."
Thank you, Jackman. The story will never end here. For your information, Jackman was also awarded the MVP title in July 2025, which he definitely deserved. MFV also invites Jackman’s manager as a conclusion of Jackman:
