WINDHOEK– The Gobabis-based Ounongo Technology Centre (OTC) is busy with an initiative of mobilising role players in the transport sector towards engaging youths in their projects in the run up to the 2014 Transport, Innovation and Technologies Expo scheduled for August 21-23 in Gobabis.
In this regard a stakeholders consultative meeting has been scheduled for this Friday. Public and private chief executives officers, as well as corporate and marketing managers in the transport sector have been invited to this meeting taking place at the Omara Guest House. The Ministry of Transport and Works have also been invited to carve the roadmap for the envisaged transport expo in August. The endeavour is the brainchild of the Omaheke Youth Employment Creation and Training Fund under the OTC and is an offspring of the Business Summit for Youth Employment of 2013, at which the then Deputy Minister of National Service, Youth, Sport and Culture officiated. The Summit identified the transport sector as a vital variable in youth empowerment.
With the Namibian transport sector and infrastructure development being one of the fastest growing sectors, windows of business opportunities in transit storage facilities, logistics, roads and railway maintenance and aviation has been opened and because of these opportunities, a need has been identified to host the expo in the Omaheke region. The first of its kind in rural Namibia, the expo would aim at identifying and underlining potential opportunities within the transport sector, particularly with respect to the empowerment of unemployed youth; bring together corporate leaders in the sector to see how they may provide technical and financial support in the preparation of the expo; revise the transport policy and discuss challenges within the transport sector and share with the unemployed youths in the region business opportunities and empowerment potentials in the transport sector as well create an information-sharing network forum between the unemployed youths in the region and stakeholders in the sector.