Ounongo Repository (Namibia Univ. of Science and Technology)
Ounongo Repository (Namibia Univ. of Science and Technology)Not a member yet
826 research outputs found
Sort by
Building the critical mass for STPs in small countries: The Namibian experience.
No full textInternational Association of Science Parks Conference (28th : 2011 June 19-22 : Copenhagen, Denmark)Building science & technology parks (STPs) requires a critical mass of research institutions and innovative companies as well as a significant number of innovative emerging companies. Companies in small developing countries such as Namibia face numerous challenges stifling their potential
growth and preventing them from becoming suitable tenants of an STP. Given this environment, the implementation of the Science & Technology Park at the Namibia
Business Innovation Centre (NBIC) was planned as the last step of a staged rollout of programmes targeting entrepreneurs and SMEs across the country in a first and a business incubator as a second step. These steps are designed to build a critical mass of innovative start-up companies that
eventually ’graduate’ from programmes and incubator to move into the STP. At the same time, NBIC is partnering with existing technology companies that are interested in moving into the STP. A key motivation here is that the STP will develop training programmes for employees and graduates
in industry-relevant skills leading to industry certification. The first phase of implementation already exposed a wide array of challenges for entrepreneurs and existing SMEs as well as a need to focus stronger on rural areas to support entrepreneurs there.
We report on the status of implantation and the lessons learned in creating a critical mass for a sustainable STP in Namibia
Welcome to the first Indigenous Knowledge Technology Conference
No full textIndigenous Knowledge Technology Conference (IKTC)(2011 : Nov.2-4 : Windhoek, Namibia)I have great pleasure in welcoming you to the first Indigenous Knowledge Technology Conference
(IKTC2011) in Windhoek, Namibia. It is so exciting to see the realization of, what was, just a vague idea borne from the desire to bring together a critical mass of people engaged in studying indigenous knowledge systems and
designing new and different technologies to support the representation and dissemination of indigenous knowledge
Speech by Dr. Tjama Tjivikua, Vice Chancellor, NUST, on the occasion of the launch of the NUST's Student Laptop Initiative, Thursday 3 March 2011, Windhoek.
No full textLaunch of the NUST Student Laptop Initiative (2011 Mar. 3, Windhoek
Vote of thanks by Mr. Oloff Munjanu, Chairperson of NUST Council, at the 15th Annual Awards Ceremony of the NUST, Thursday 15 April 2010.
No full textAnnual Awards Ceremony of the NUST (15th : 2010 Apr. 15 : Windhoek, Namibia)Theme for 2010: Re-thinking competitiveness for socio-economic development
Draft address by Mr. Johannes Endjala, President of the Namibia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NCCI) at the 15th Annual Awards Ceremony of the NUST, Thursday 15 April 2010.
No full textAnnual Awards Ceremony of the NUST (15th : 2010 Apr. 15 : Windhoek, Namibia)Theme for 2010: Re-thinking competitiveness for socio-economic development
Determining requirements within an indigenous knowledge system of African rural communities.
No full textEliciting and analyzing requirements within knowledge
systems, which fundamentally differ so far from technology
supported systems represent particular challenges. African rural
communities’ life is deeply rooted in an African Indigenous
knowledge system manifested in their practices such as
Traditional Medicine. We describe our endeavors to elicit
requirements to design a system to support the accumulation
and sharing of traditional local knowledge within two rural
Herero communities in Namibia. We show how our method
addressed various challenges in eliciting and depicting
intangible principles arising because African communities do
not dichotomize theoretical and practical know-how or
privilege a science of abstraction and generalization.
Ethnography provided insights into etiology, or causal interrelationships
between social values, spiritual elements and
everyday life. Participatory methods, involving youth and
elders, revealed nuances in social relations and pedagogy
pertinent to the transfer of knowledge from generation to
generation. Researcher and participant-recorded audio-visual
media revealed that interactions prioritize speech, gesture and
bodily interaction, above visual context. Analysis of the
performed and narrated structures reveal some of the ways that
people tacitly transfer bodily and felt-experiences and temporal
patterns in storytelling. Experiments using digital and paperbased
media, in situ rurally showed the ways that people in
rural settings encounter and learn within their everyday
experiences of the land. These analyses also demonstrate that
own ontological and representational biases can constrain
eliciting local meanings and analyzing transformations in
meaning as we introduce media. Reflections on our method are
of value to others who need to elicit requirements in
communities whose literacy, social and spiritual logic and
values profoundly differ from those in the knowledge systems
that typify ICT design.NUS
Emasculated byt the crisis: Representations of the struggling fathers in selected contemporary Zimbabwean literature.
No full textThe political turmoil and socio-economic comatose of the past decade in Zimbabwe has had a toll on the social transformation of the Zimbabwean society. The astronomical inflation, the incessant shortages of basic consumer goods, jobs etc. has changed the face of the evolution of culture masculinities, exposed the vulnerability of the male father figure and consigned him to the fringes of the everyday struggle to provide for his family. The gap between the traditional male breadwinner and the hopelessly inept father figure produced by the extraordinary constraints of the last decade in Zimbabwe has over the years created a fertile ground for creative imagination as writers grapple with the nature of the "Zimbabwean problem", the multifarious forces shaping the humanitarian crisis and the human responses to the dystopian situation. This paper looks at the destabilising impact of the problematicpolitical and economic situation on the male father figure's capacity to effectively deliver on his traditional and cultural responsibility to sustain a family. We contend that the contemporary Zimbabwean narrative particularly in the short story genre reflects and refracts on the complexities of negotiating a crisis situation and represents the "emasculated" state of the male father figure rendered helpless by forces beyond his influence
Situating morality in the housing debate in Harare: Case of Matapi Hostels.
No full textThe urban housing question in Zimbabwe has been debated for a long time yet without paying adequate attention to the plight of the life experienced by hostel dwellers in the former ‘bachelor’ hostels. These, in Mbare, Harare, now accommodate thousands of families. Such ambivalence to discourse has denied the inhabitants stake in a number of social well-being aspects, morality included. Morality emanates largely from both religious and cultural footings. It must be noted that almost three decades of such gendered-but-loose living has exposed these poor urban dwellers to serious challenges, not only moral but health, access to credit, and related socio-economic plights. The habitation has been nothing but a heinous experience. Yet, the hostellers have become so sucked up in the abnormality that to them it has become the norm. Most of the children have never experienced life except this kind. The question is: Why has it happened in this world where there is great sermonization about adequate housing, sustainable development, human rights and upright living? Matapi - like most old hostels in Mbare - harbours several hundreds of thousands of households living in complete disjunction of the postulations of the gospel preachers, human rights advocates and cultural custodians of the time. The rampancy of moral decadence and consequential demise of the people-hood of the dwellers is a total headache to any serious social scientist. The paper is a short treatise to describe, explain and critique the living conditions in the hostels. It is largely qualitative with very little inclination to quantitative data
Joint action research at Vasdraai Farm between resettled farmers and students of the Agriculture program.
No full textReport on NUST visits to Vasdraai Resettlement FarmThis research was funded through the Country Pilot Partnership programme (CCP
