VR brought into the Bush: Donkerbos enhancing VR

The community in Donkerbos is currently contributing to the development of natural hand gestures, which are to be used in a Virtual Reality (VR) system. Bringing VR into the bush with local communities provided community members an opportunity to re-explore interactions in VR as they enhanced and extended their VR experience with the said system.

On a recent MTC-funded trip to Donkerbos , led by Prof Heike Winschiers-Theophilus from NUST and Dr Kasper Rodil together with Emilie Arendttorp, both from Aalborg University (AAU), Denmark, a new prototype developed by students at AAU, was evaluated. The prototype consisted of hand gestures which have been co-designed by the community on a previous visit. Four movement gestures were implemented, which are used to guide a person back, forwards, left, and right.

After having tried the prototype the community provided feedback upon the implemented gestures for further development. The next step is to implement an old traditional San story into VR while continuing the work on exploring the use of natural gestures.

MTC EduTech PPS handover

Namibia’s ICT solution provider, MTC and the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST),

signed a Memorandum of Understanding, which focusses collaboration in areas such as

Emerging and Disruptive technologies, Ubiquitous and Pervasive Computing, Electronic Engineering

and other Engineering Disciplines, Marketing and Communication, Telecommunication Products and

Services, Cyber Security and Forensics, User Experience, amongst others.

As part of this partnership, MTC availed digital equipment to facilitate a cutting-edge

EdTech innovation research and community development project that NUST runs in collaboration with

the People’s Primary School (PPS) in Windhoek. The project aims to establish novel learning ecologies

including remote presence learning and interactive technologies, which enable children across the

country and continents to jointly learn, share and create new knowledge.

Technology Innovation Bazaar

The Innovation Bazaar was hosted from the 23rd – 25th of September 2020

COVID-19 COMMUNICATION CHALLENGE Full Terms and Conditions.

  1. The competition is organized by the COVID-Behavioral Change Communication Research Team under the HILREC program.
  2. There is no entry fee and no purchase necessary to enter this competition.
  3. Route to entry for the competition and details of how to enter are via https://ictechhub.com/covid-19-creativity-challenge/ only
  4. By entering this competition, an entrant is indicating his/her agreement to be bound by these terms and conditions.
  5. The competition is open to residents of Namibia aged 6 years and over except members of the organizing committee and their immediate family members. 
  6. Only one entry will be accepted per person or group. Multiple entries from the same person or group will be disqualified.
  7. The entry MUST be original and cannot contain third party material for which copyright has not been obtained in written. We reserve the right to retrospectively disqualify entries, for which violations of this rules were discovered, at any point in time after submission. 
  8. Any personal data relating to entrants will be used solely in accordance with current Namibian policies and legislation on data protection and will not be disclosed to a third party without the entrant’s prior consent.
  9. The closing date for entry will be the 14th of September 2020. After this date no further entries to the competition will be considered.
  10. No responsibility can be accepted for entries not received for whatever reason. 
  11. The organiser is not responsible for inaccurate prize details supplied to any entrant by any third party connected with this competition.
  12. The prizes are as stated. The prizes are not transferable. Prizes are subject to availability and we reserve the right to substitute any prize with another of equivalent value without giving notice.
  13. The prizes will be determined by an independent panel of judges/ selection committee appointed by the organisers. 
  14. The winners will be notified by email and / or Direct Message on WhatsApp /Facebook and / or letter within 28 days of the closing date. If the winner cannot be contacted or do not claim the prize within 14 days of notification, we reserve the right to withdraw the prize from the winner and pick a replacement winner.
  15. The organisers will notify the winner when and where the prize can be collected / is delivered.
  16. The organiser’s decision in respect of all matters to do with the competition will be final and no correspondence will be entered into.
  17. The winners agree to the use of their names, images and entries in any publicity material, as well as official covid-19 communications by the organisers, sponsors or the Namibian government.
  18. The winners’ names will be publically announced within 28 days after closing date.
  19. This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook, Twitter or any other Social Media Network.
  20. The competition and these terms and conditions will be governed by Namibian law and any disputes will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Namibia.
  21. The organisers reserve the right to cancel or amend the competition and these terms and conditions without notice in the event of a further catastrophe, war, civil or military disturbance, act of God or any actual or anticipated breach of any applicable law or regulation or any other event outside of the organiser’s control. Any changes to the competition will be notified to entrants as soon as possible by the organiser.
  22. The organisers shall have the right, at its sole discretion and at any time, to change or modify these terms and conditions, such change shall be effective immediately upon posting to the webpage.

COVID-19 Survival Kit for Youth Entrepreneurs: Innovation

The Covid-19 Survival Kit…

COVID-19 Survival Kit for Youth Entrepreneurs: Mental Health

The Covid-19 Survival Kit….

Lucia’s story

My name is Lucia Kanamseb. I am 22 years old and I have one child, 4-year-old Tcise.

I don’t want more children, just Tcise. When he grows up, he can become a teacher at the primary school here in Donkerbos.

I have a job. I am making beads of ostrich egg shells at home and selling them through an NGO, who picks them up and brings me new materials.

I brought one string of beads with me so that people can see it in the photo. This one is one meter long. I get 65 Namibian dollars (approximately 4 EUR / USD) for it.

Making one of these takes a lot of time. You first have to chip the beads from ostrich eggshell and make holes in them. Only after that can you start threading them. This particular one took me about two weeks to complete

I also make leather dresses by hand. I enjoy what I do and I want to continue working with these things and other projects we will establish in Donkerbos.

***

Lucia’s community, Donkerbos, has designed several income-generating projects that they want to start. Please consider donating seed money to them through the crowdfunding campaign on https://sanstarter.ictechhub.com/

If you are in Namibia, you can also support the community by purchasing one of the unique fridge magnet souvenirs they have made in collaboration with the ICTechHub. Lucia is performing on the dancing-themed magnet. For more information, see https://ictechhub.com/buy-augmented-reality-souvenirs

Oupa David’s story

My name is Dawid Kleinbooi. I am very old, even so old that my memory is not always working properly. But I know that I miss the olden days when we lived in the nature.

When I was young, I used to hunt a lot. I hunted duiker, kudu and eland. They are all antelopes. I would go on my own but if I caught something, I would give to everyone.

I still know how to hunt but I can’t do it anymore. Even if I was younger, I would not be able to because we are not allowed to do it.

You are asking so many questions about today but I am not sure what I should say because the past is the only thing I want to talk about.

I think it is good if people elsewhere get to know about us. Maybe that way we can get more clients for the magnet souvenirs we made (https://ictechhub.com/buy-augmented-reality-souvenirs).

We would also like to start a number of income-generating projects for the community.

The main thing is that we have do not have any means to help the kids in the community. That is why they drop out of school in grade 8 or 9 and do not go further in studies and life.

***

Oupa David’s community, Donkerbos, has designed several income-generating projects that they want to start. Please consider donating seed money to them through the crowdfunding campaign on https://sanstarter.ictechhub.com/

If you are in Namibia, you can also support the community by purchasing one of the unique fridge magnet souvenirs they have made in collaboration with the ICTechHub. Oupa David is performnig on the hunting-themed magnet. For more information, see https://ictechhub.com/buy-augmented-reality-souvenirs

Eva’s story

My name is Eva Tsikitis. I would like people to know how it was when I was a girl.

We lived in the nature, moving around. Grandpa would go hunting and grandma would cook for us. When we got thirsty, grandma would find special plants that have much water in them. In the night, we slept under animal skins.

Now I have seven children of my own and we have been living here in Donkerbos for a long time. My little ones do not even know about wild meat.

I wish we could return to the old life where we could move around. There is not much to do here. I wake up in the morning, wash the dishes and rake the yard. After that there is nothing else do but socialise with family and neighbours.

I hope there would be jobs in Donkerbos so that we could support our children and have more to do.

***

Eva’s community, Donkerbos, has designed several income-generating projects that they want to start. Please consider donating seed money to them through the crowdfunding campaign on https://sanstarter.ictechhub.com/

If you are in Namibia, you can also support the community by purchasing one of the unique fridge magnet souvenirs they have made in collaboration with the ICTechHub. Eva is performing on the dancing-themed magnet. For more information, see https://ictechhub.com/buy-augmented-reality-souvenirs

Tsamkao T’s story

My name is Tsamkao Taiseb. I am 27 years old.

The one thing I am proud of in my life is my family, my parents, grandparents and siblings. I would like to stay close to them here in Donkerbos, but I can’t do it much longer.

There is no work here. I need to move to town – to Gobabis 4 hours away. I travel there to look for work as often as I can afford it.

I will go again when I have managed to save up from the piece works I sometimes get on the farms around here. They don’t pay well and the working conditions are not good but something is always more than nothing.

When I move, I will miss the nature around here. I will always remember the evenings by the fire with my father and my brother. We used to go hunting together when I was small. I still go out to the bush on my own sometimes but i feel lonely then.

I wish in the future young people would have a choice on whether they want to move out of the community or not.

***

Tsamkao’s community, Donkerbos, has designed several income-generating projects that they want to start. Please consider donating seed money to them through the crowdfunding campaign on https://sanstarter.ictechhub.com/

If you are in Namibia, you can also support the community by purchasing one of the unique fridge magnet souvenirs they have made in collaboration with the ICTechHub. Tsamkao is performing on the hunting-themed magnet. For more information, see https://ictechhub.com/buy-augmented-reality-souvenirs