National ICT youth summit pushes home-grown solutions

It is an honour to be in a room filled with young people, information and communication technology (ICT) policymakers, experts, innovators and enthusiasts. 

Today, we dedicate our focus to young people and the role they have to play in the ICT space. According to the latest census, the Namibian population is predominantly young, and we need to offer them these platforms. 

I am equally excited to learn about the creative and innovative ideas as we navigate an era of digital transformation and artificial intelligence (AI).

As the ICT sector, we have deliberately created this platform for the industry and young people to come and network, share their expertise and discuss trends. Moreover, this platform presents the youth with opportunities in terms of mentorship and possible collaboration on developing their innovation and ICT ecosystem.

What excites me are the young people’s presentations on the

development of an AI-driven government media engagement platform and media practitioners online registration portal. The purpose of the hackathon is to tap into the skills of Namibians and

demonstrate that the government has trust in its own talent and promotes the use of home-grown technologies. 

The platform developed here will ensure the media platform will improve service delivery through the development of a secure online registration portal for media practitioners, including a publicly accessible media register and feedback mechanism for government agencies as we prepare for the implementation of the Access to Information Act, among others.

Competitions and activities of this nature are essential in stimulating innovative solutions to national issues and allow young people to showcase their talents and creative ideas. I would like to take this opportunity to commend them and encourage them to continue participating in competitions of this nature.

Equally, I call on academia, industry leaders and financial institutions to assist our young people in mentoring, equipping and financing these innovative ideas. The government on its own

cannot assist these great minds and innovations; it should be a collective effort between the public and the private sector.

For the past three days, I have seen some of the projects created by the youth at their respective exhibition booths and I was genuinely impressed by their innovations. It gives me great comfort to know that our ICT sector will be well looked after. The performances were also outstanding; we truly have talent in our homeland. 

Keep up the excellent work and continue to put our country on the map. Always remember: Your dreams are valid, young child. Never stop striving, one day, it will surely pay off. One day, we will live in the Namibia we have always envisioned.

At this juncture, I must reiterate that we all remain vigilant online. For the past years, we have witnessed cases of cybercrime and cyberbullying, among others, on the increase. Some individuals

may not be aware of these issues so encourage you public to participate in our cybersecurity awareness session. 

Organisations can reach out to the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology and our partners to participate in these cybersecurity awareness sessions to equip your staff members with the skills to protect themselves online. 

In this digital era, everyone ought to have these skills to protect themselves against potential cyber threats. Today marks the final day of our eighth national ICT summit. We had three days of insightful and robust conversations on how to shape our digital space. It has been a fantastic three days. We have learnt a lot during the summit, with our primary focus on digital transformation and artificial intelligence.

I take this opportunity to inform you as a measure of our commitment to advance Namibia’s digitalisation journey that the minister of information and communication technology, Emma Theofelus, on 10 July 2024 broke the ground for the Ikumwe Tower and towers in Nakabolelwa and Mutikila, as well as in other areas of the great Zambezi region. 

Today the Ikumwe Tower is complete in exactly three months as planned. This is a clear demonstration that the government of the Republic of Namibia is resolute in connecting the last mile, and that our investment in network infrastructure will position Namibia to adapt and not die in the era of digital transformation and artificial intelligence.

To this end, we have a considerable amount of work to do to keep pace with the rest of the world in terms of technology, but initiatives such as this summit demonstrate that we are heading in the right direction. We can achieve this as long as we work together. 

Thank you for being part of this summit. Having all our delegates here and virtually is an honour as you all shape our ICT sector. – Deputy minister of information and communication technology Modestus Amutse at the youth day of the eighth national ICT Summit, 11 September 2024, Windhoek