A growing trend on other continents is the use of start-up innovation centres where groups of people share research and collaborate in order to grow as a business.
As spaces where people have access to the right platforms to build skills and make decisions, start-ups can turn into multimillion and billion-dollar corporations.
On the homefront, MTC made an exciting announcement last week by unveiling a new innovation centre at their headquarters in the capital city, which will cater to enterprises.
MTC said they created the centre to tap into ideas and work together with start-ups, entrepreneurs and youth to “move onto other technological advances,” particularly enterprise-based services that deal with “comprehensive fibre internet and digital cloud computing services”.
Cloud computing has to do with computing services which are hosted over the internet from servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, etc. And those who have ideas in these spheres are welcome to the Innovation Centre to receive support.
According to acting chief executive officer Licky Erastus, their goals include smart partnerships through the centre, which falls in line with their aggressive strategy to become the digital enabler of choice in the country.
“The MTC Innovation Centre is the first of its kind in Namibia,” he said. “It is aimed at showcasing new business and consumer solutions, and will provide tools for visitors to experiment or iterate on their ideas and see how they can apply these techs in this business.”
An interesting point made by chief commercial officer Melvin Angula is the creative tools the global market is using today. Amazon, Alexa, the Unix operating system and Amazon Kindle are only a few of the products which have stemmed from innovation centres or hubs. “The only conversation is sharing ideas. This is what we’re trying to drive from MTC’s front,” he said. “We want to tap into your great minds. We all have the capabilities.”
MTC has created a space where the digital world meets entrepreneurship, and hopefully, in future, we can see a variety of bright ideas turn into cost-effective products that will drive Namibia into an era of technology that we have never reached before.
The centre will be open to the public at a later stage when they can “experience, share, develop and turn ideas into reality”.
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