World We Dare to Imagine Pitch

Tàu Điện Ngầm Hồng Hà (Red River Metro)

One dollar. That was all the money my dad had at 17 after dropping out of school and being forced to make a living for himself. He spent that dollar on a bus ticket to take him from his hometown in rural Vietnam to Hanoi, the capital. He worked tirelessly in the Chợ Xuân night market for years before acquiring enough money to start his own business, which would flourish over the following decades. 27 years later, that singular dollar had snowballed into something big enough to enable me to fly across the Pacific Ocean and attend USC. If that bus route didn’t exist, or my dad didn’t have enough money to afford the ticket, where would I be today?

My dad’s story illustrates the importance of access to transportation – something that is not equally given to everyone. I have witnessed family members, relatives, and friends forced to turn down work opportunities, even their dream jobs, simply because it cost too much or took too long to travel to and from the office. If this didn’t hold them back, I am sure that many of them could have been as successful and inspiring as my dad has been.

Hanoi is a city three times the size of Los Angeles, with a population of 8.6 million people. Yet, transportation in the city is very limited. In terms of public transportation, there are only two metro lines that service two of the city’s districts. The remaining districts are forced to resort to using outdated public buses, which are often delayed. The primary form of private transportation is the moped, which is dangerous and inconvenient to drive. Access to transportation will worsen in the future, as the Hanoi government plans to ban all mopeds by 2030 to reduce traffic congestion and carbon emissions. The vast population and the dire need for transportation present an attractive financial and social opportunity.

Our organization, Tàu Điện Ngầm Hồng Hà (Red River Metro), proposes to build an extensive network of metro lines in Hanoi. We want to focus on providing for underserved districts such as Long Biên, Hà Đông, Đông Anh, and Hoài Đức. Our mission is to provide everyone – young and old, poor and rich, men and women – the ability to travel quickly, cheaply, and safely to wherever they need to get. In addition, our metro system will also help reduce the overall carbon footprint of the city by up to 25%, as it will help reduce the use of private transportation, which is the leading pollutant.

But why should you invest in us, a for-profit private company, and not the Hanoi Metro, a state-owned corporation that already has plans to expand its operations? My answer is history. In the 1980s, the state-owned Japanese Railway Group struggled profitably and depended on subsidies to remain operational. However, in 1987, the company was privatized and given to the hands of investors to turn the company around. Since then, the railway group has been profitable and continued serving the Japanese communities without requiring extensive assistance. Private corporations are more effective in the long term because they are more operationally efficient. A private metro system will be more financially stable while providing the same benefits to the communities and environment as a state-owned one. 

I hope that the Anima Mundi Development Fund believes in our vision. No one should be limited by where they are or where they can go. Instead, they should only be limited by how capable they are and how far they are willing to go to make a difference. Our project meets all of your investment criteria, and I assure you that our passionate and capable team is the right people to handle your investments. Together, we can work towards building the world we dare to imagine, one step at a time.