SANTA ANA, CALIFORNIA - Early registration to the Vietnamese Professionals Society North American Conference 2004 is now available on the conference website at http://www.vps.org/bm2004. Attendees are encouraged to register early as a late-registration will be imposed after September 30th. In addition, the organizing committee has released a list of confirmed speakers to this conference that will take place on October 23rd and 24th at the Doubletree Hotel Orange County Airport in Santa Ana, California.

Among the speakers will be Dr. Quynh Kieu, who founded the non-profit organization Project Vietnam that yearly heads medical teams to Vietnam to provide health care services and train doctors, Bao Anh Do, the Vice President of Business at Nguoi Viet Daily News and Michael Matsuda, California State Commisioner in Education and the coordinator of the Vietnamese American Experience Curriculum that brings Vietnamese history into American high schools.

To cover entertainment, First International Vietnamese Film Festival Coordinator Ysa Le will speak along with Mike Nguyen, Supervising Animator of Warner Bros' full-length animation "Iron Giant" as well as documentary filmmaker Duc Nguyen whose upcoming film "Bolinao 52" tells the story of the Vietnamese Boat People.

The conference will also feature speakers from the field of science and technology (environment scientist Mai Thanh Truyet), civil society (Do Qui Toan), journalism (Andrew Lam), human rights (Dr. Ninh X. Tran) and economy (Dr. Chan Tran).

The keynote speaker for the conference will be Australian distinguished lawyer Hoi Trinh. Hoi Trinh has written numerous publications in law journals and articles for newspapers including the Los Angeles Times and Orange County Register. However, it is his volunteer work with the Vietnamese boat people in Southeast Asia that he has earned him international recognition. With his law experience, he assisted boat people in Hong Kong with resettlement. Hoi Trinh is currently working in Manila, the Philippines assisting some 2,000 stateless Vietnamese refugees with resettlement.

This conference is organized every 2-3 years by the Vietnamese Professional Society. Previous conferences were held in Hawaii, California, Houston and Dallas, and, this year, the conference will return to Southern California with the theme "Roles of Vietnamese Professionals - Global and Local Perspectives". As the title implies, the conference will showcase the diversity of professional fields that Vietnamese Americans are working in as well as educate them on all aspects of development that is currently taking place in Vietnam. It is our hope to promote a greater sense of civic participation by getting Vietnamese Americans to lend their expertise in a variety of local and global contribution.