c|Net reports that Vietnam is bracing for a social and economic change, with IT at the heart of it all.

Like much of the developing world, Vietnam is caught between one era of pushcarts and foot-pedals, and a generation growing accustomed to SUVs and mobile phones. As the one-party, communist state embraces capitalism and foreign trade, Vietnam’s gross domestic product growth is poised to hit 8.5 percent this year–the fastest in Asia, next to China. Although progress since the doi moi free-market reforms in 1986 came in fits and starts, growth has exceeded 7 percent annually for the past decade.

Vietnam has come a long way since the “American War” more than three decades ago, when it was among the poorest nations in the world. Most Vietnamese were born after the former North and South Vietnam merged, with more than two-thirds of the population younger than 30, and half under 25.

Vietnam’s 17 million Internet users make up 20 percent of its population, and surveys show more young people using the Internet than even tech-savvy India. Literacy is a strong 94 percent.

Read the full piece to get a phenomological sense of how IT and the internet are pervading into this once (and in many ways still is) damaged country.