The Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST)’s vice-chancellor Erold Naomab has implored the academic community to support the MTC Innovation Centre and Mobile Home, which are set to encourage rapid innovation and promote entrepreneurship.

He said this at the High-Tech Transfer Plaza Select (HTTPS)  centre, where the grand opening of the MTC Innovation Centre and Mobile Home took place last week. The mobile home will be offering various MTC services, including the registration of sim cards, while the centre is a national hub for innovation designed to aid the public, academic community and industry at large to bring innovative ideas to life.

The ethos of the HTTPS concept is to improve competitiveness through trans-disciplinary research, and the transfer of specialised knowledge and technology.

Naomab stated: “We have made notable strides towards fulfilling the mandate of this ecosystem, which is to facilitate a functional, technologically-inspired space for the university, industries, development partners and entrepreneurs”.

The partnerships are targeted at key areas such as professional development for staff, curriculum development, hosting of students for work-integrated learning, and sharing of research facilities.

MTC managing director Licky Erastus said while the nation ought to celebrate the milestone between the two institutions, industry needs to accelerate and set itself fit for the fourth industrial revolution.

“This is an innovation hub, where industry experts and academics will be appreciating and leveraging synergies to transform innovative ideas and concepts to life,” he noted.

Erastus added that in the fast digital space, inclusive of both public and private sectors, innovation must be the order of business existence, intimating that a nonchalant approach to it must be discarded as it is injurious to the socio-welfare and national economic development.

Meanwhile, information minister Peya Mushelenga stated that in the long run, the perpetual search for new and better ways of doing things drives human learning and, ultimately, prosperity for all should be the aiming point.

“All things considered for technological innovations to excel – young people should be at the helm, supported by an array of interventions to grow the economy as well as to grow minds and cultivate ideas. This is especially as we recover from a catastrophic global pandemic, where we need to give expression to how the role of technology is advancing the growth of our young people, and how we as a government can contribute to this,” he urged. – psiririka@nepc.com.na