Eligible participants for VEDC 2026 are students currently enrolled at universities, academies, and colleges nationwide as of the registration deadline on June 30, 2026. Each team consists of 2 to 5 members; a student serving as team leader of one team may only participate as a member in another team, and each team may register only one product idea. The Organizing Committee encourages teams to have an Academic Advisor who is a supervising lecturer from the team's own training institution.

Competition Schedule from July to November 2026

VEDC 2026 unfolds across three consecutive rounds, spanning the country from North to South before converging on Da Nang for the final night.

Round 1 — Preliminary screening takes place online. Teams submit their registration files through the link https://bom.so/VEDC2026, including the registration form and the project idea proposal. The professional panel scores submissions according to four criteria: creativity (30%), preliminary feasibility (25%), practical applicability (25%), and technical system architecture (15%), with bonus points for clear diagrams and video illustration (5%). The submission deadline is June 30, 2026, and the list of 30 teams advancing to the semifinals will be announced before November 7, 2026 on the website, Fanpage, and via email sent directly to the teams.

Round 2 — The semifinals are held in person at three competition sites between October 19 and 24, 2026.
The Northern region competes at the Military Technical Academy, 236 Hoang Quoc Viet Street, Hanoi.
The Central region competes at the Vietnam–Korea University of Information and Communication Technology, University of Da Nang, 470 Tran Dai Nghia Street, Da Nang City.
The Southern region competes at the University of Science, Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City, 227 Nguyen Van Cu Street, Ho Chi Minh City.

Teams present live before the regional panel within 25 minutes, focusing on the system model, operating principles, circuit diagrams, algorithms, and the plan for the finished product. The Organizing Committee provides funding for components and equipment to each team presenting a product at the semifinals, at a level of 2 million VND per team. The ten best teams from the three regions will be selected for the Final, with results announced before October 27, 2026.

Round 3 — The project Final is held on November 25, 2026 at the Vietnam–Korea University of Information and Communication Technology, University of Da Nang. Teams present their project report and give a live demo before the national panel of judges along with invited business guests. The evaluation criteria for the Final include creativity and breakthrough (20%), technical completeness (25%), practicality and application scalability (20%), live demonstration and UX/UI (20%), and the ability to present and engage in in-depth defense (15%).

VEDC 2026 project products must fully integrate embedded and IoT components, including at least one type of sensor, a microcontroller (MCU) or FPGA/GPU, and the capability to transmit data via Wi-Fi, ZigBee, LoRa, BLE, or compatible protocols, while also connecting to the Internet or Cloud. For hardware, products may use popular boards such as ESP32, STM32, Raspberry Pi, and Arduino, or dedicated embedded AI boards such as Jetson Nano, Google Coral, and Intel Neural Compute Stick 2, along with FPGA development boards from Intel, AMD, and Digilent, or a custom PCB design. The software must include firmware, a connection to the cloud or a local server, and a dashboard for data display and control. The integration of AI/ML on embedded and edge devices to enhance autonomous reasoning, automated logic processing, and decision-making at the edge is a central criterion that the Organizing Committee values highly.

VEDC 2026 Prize Structure

The basic prize structure of the contest comprises 10 main prizes and 3 special prizes. The First Prize, worth 20 million VND, is awarded to the best team in the entire contest. The Second Prizes, each worth 10 million VND, are awarded to the teams ranked 2nd and 3rd. Three prizes of 6 million VND are awarded to the teams ranked 4th, 5th, and 6th. Four prizes, each worth 3 million VND, are awarded to the teams ranked 7th through 10th. In addition, 3 special prizes — for creativity, popularity, and practical value — each worth 1 million VND, are selected by the Judging Panel. All awards come with a certificate.