Hanoi boy becomes Oxford man

VietNamNet Bridge – Upon completion of his Oxford doctoral thesis at age 26 as well as a long list of publications in scientific journals, Nguyen Hoang Long, the boy from Hanoi, has become the first Vietnamese lecturer at Oxford University.

Nguyen Hoang Long, first right, has become lecturer at Oxford University

Long later left Hanoi to study information technology at Bristol University in the UK. When Long was a first year student, he attended lectures for third year students. When he was a second year student, he studied subjects reserved for Master’s students and won a research award from Nuffield Institute for his work. After that, Long won awards from two computer companies, Logica and Inforenz for his initiatives relating to security.

Long received the highest marks in his second and third years at the university. He also graduated first in his class of information technology students at age 22. With the guidance of Professor Nigel Smart, one of the leading European scientists in information security, Long has published in scientific journals of the UK and presented his research to prestigious scientific councils

Long had invitations to work for IBM and HSBC Bank even before his graduation. He refused the offers to continue studying at Oxford University.

According to Long, he especially loves Oxford, which has produced 46 Nobel laureates, 25 British Prime Ministers, six kings, many politicians, poets, mathematics and economists, including former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Nguyen Hoang Long was given a dispensation to write his doctoral dissertation without having to defend a Master’s thesis first.

While preparing to defend his dissertation, Long gave lectures to university students in six different subjects. He has also been invited by 19 leading universities in 10 countries in the world to give lectures to students, including the Stanford, Cambridge and UCL, and ETH Zurich.

As predicted by many famous professors and scientists, Nguyen Hoang Long excellently defended his dissertation in 2009 at age 26. He has been invited to stay there to work as lecturer, becoming the first Vietnamese lecturer at Oxford University.

When asked about his future plans, Long replied that he will stay in the UK for three or four years and then he will return to Vietnam. He hopes to bring his knowledge back to help Vietnam’s development and revealed that he would be happy to give lectures at a university in Vietnam.