Hoang Xuan Luan, a 12th grader in Quang Tri Province, north-central Vietnam, rummaged about junk shops to look for accessories, assembled a computer and installed software himself.

The special computer helped Luan win the third prize at a provincial excellent IT student contest and nurture his dream of becoming a computer engineer in the future.

With his efforts to overcome difficulties and pursue his passion, Luan, a male student of class 12B1 of Con Tien School in Gio Son Commune, Gio Linh District, Quang Tri Province, got a ‘Vi tuong lai Viet Nam’ (For Vietnam’s future) scholarship awarded by the Quang Tri Province Youth Union.

‘Made-by-Luan’ computer

The ‘made-by-Luan’ computer is the first foundation to achieve his dream.

Sitting in front of the computer, which he has used since he was in grade 9, in his narrow house, Luan said his studying is much more convenient thanks to the computer.

“Everyone said this is a ‘made-by-Luan’ computer. I feel happy and think that they are right as I even do not know how many accessories the computer has and what brands they are from.

“This is my first-ever computer, an unforgettable remembrance,” Luan said.

Luan, like many other children in Gio Son Commune, had to visit an Internet shop to use computers.

He was completely bewitched by the miraculous world of computers.

“I wished I had had a computer to learn about it,” Luan said.

When he was in grade 9, a friend of Luan had a broken computer, so he and his cousin came to the friend’s house to ask for the scrap computer.

Luan later looked at the computer longingly although it did not run after being turned on.

The broken computer was enough to make Luan happy although he did not know if the computer would run or not.

Luan was determined and believed that he could revive the computer.

He later dismantled the CPU (Central Processing Unit), learned from the Internet and concluded that most of the accessories of the computer broke and needed alternatives.

With initial knowledge about hardware from Google, Luan visited a junk shop in the commune to look for accessories. He foraged for computer accessories from a pile of scrap computers and fetched home active accessories.

“My cousin and I bought a hard disk drive, RAM (Random Access Memory), a chip, and a screen from the junk shop at VND150,000 [US$6.3],” Luan recalled.

Bringing the accessories home, Luan held a screwdriver but did not know where to start.

He decided to learn from Google. After many difficulties, he finally completed assembling the computer.

However, after pressing the power button, all he saw was a black screen.

Luan dismantled the CPU, connected and assembled accessories again, and even visited the junk shop one more time to look for more accessories.

After three times, the CPU began to run. Luan cannot forget the moment when the screen turned on.

Following the hardware, Luan accessed the Internet to learn how to install software.

His passion motivated him, so he found it easy to install the operating system and software for his computer.

“As I assembled the computer and installed software myself, the computer faced many hardware and software errors. At the time, I tried to fix them myself.

“Over the past three years, I have been repeatedly correcting errors and I’m still using the ‘made-by-Luan’ computer now,” Luan said.

Fruitful results

The ‘made-by-Luan’ computer has helped him achieve fruitful results.

With his passion and talent, Luan was picked to his school’s excellent IT student team.

He quickly got tech lessons from his teachers. Early this school year, he and two other students attended a provincial excellent IT student contest and he got the third prize.

“My prize is my gratitude to my teachers and parents. I consider it a memory and I will continue trying to become a good computer engineer and programmer.”

Luan is an excellent student over the past three years. He is preparing for the high school graduation exam and striving to become an IT student of the Da Nang University of Science and Technology in the namesake central city.

He studies English daily, which he is not good at, himself.

He has set a target to improve his English before he enters university so that he can access and understand programming, which is full of specialized terms.

Doan Thi Chau Loan, the head teacher of Luan’s class at the Con Tien School in Quang Tri, said the ‘made-by-Luan’ computer is well-known at the school. It is a story of the perseverance to overcome difficulties and head toward the future.

“Luan is an energetic, obedient and excellent student. He is good at natural science subjects and has a passionate interest in information technology.

“I hope with his passion, desire, and studying achievements, his dream of becoming an excellent computer engineer and programmer will come true,” Loan added.

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