Keywords: education, networking

Mobile Lab promotes mobile applications development by local software developers, through programming hackathons, training, peer-learning events and networking. The initiative grew from an average of 5 members in 2014 to a current 600+ members, of which 38% are women.

To engage software programmers, tech entrepreneurs, academia, industry and individuals who are interested in digitalizing solutions to local societal challenges. The Lab uses the theory of co-creation in advancing its purpose. Its activities are split along the weekly calendar, to accommodate various target interest groups. Through our hackathons, the lab has developed over 120 mobile applications prototypes about 95% of them is implemented by individual developers. The Mobile Lab simply provide a platform for the programmers and other interested groups to develop their mobile application ideas into usable prototypes. In addition, the lab has created an initiative known as Developer Circle, which consists of ±600 members that help each others in projects, learning activities and information sharing. These members work on a voluntarily basis, by offering software development trainings to the local youths on a train-the-trainer basis, with the aim of capacitating more youths across the country on mobile applications development skills. These events are hosted in partnership with local and international partners and sponsors. Some of the vibrant projects we are currently running include the Open Data and Big Data (with Facebook), Hydro Meter Solutions (with local entrepreneurs), Internet Society Namibian Chapter (ISOC), and Gender-based Violence initiative (with Namibian Women in Computing). The Mobile Lab also contributes to the national technology ecosystem by assisting local institutions and the Government to host programming hackathons as well as national ICT summits. The operation funding of the Mobile Lab is being provided by the Namibia University of Science and Technology (www.nust.na) under Namibia Business Innovation Institute (NBII) (http://nbii.nust.na/).

The Mobile Lab is community-oriented, its operations are run by the youth members who are mostly current and former software development students of the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) and University of Namibia (UNAM) In a co-creation format. 90% of the events at the Mobile Lab are currently externally funded and hence 40% self-sustainable. The initiative used to attract only 5% to 15% of women in 2013-2014, but it is now comprised of 38% women members. We have also collaborated with two national banks to develop a local cashless taxi payment system and an online crowd funding platform for local entrepreneurs, which are all currently being finalized by their respective bank institutions before being publicly implemented. Marketing of the Mobile Lab events is all done via social media, and are always attended beyond current space capacity.

There is a constant increase in the awareness of the Mobile Lab activities, which has increased number of participants in each training, hackathon, and other events hosted. Technology and innovation are fairly new fields in Namibia, and therefore an increase in the average participation from 5 participants to more than 65 participants per event is quite a positive milestone in an effort to apply a paradigm shift among Namibian youths. The Mobile Lab offers a unique capacity building to local software developers to refresh and improve on what they have learned during their programming studies. NBII provide start-up mentorship to the tech-preneurs that implement their business ideas through the Mobile Lab. This is done to prevent early failure of Namibian start-ups which is reported by Bank of Namibia as 80%. The Mobile Lab has also contributed to the local, continental and international mobile applications development ecosystem by collaborating with similar institutions in Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Germany, etc. Global tech giants have also collaborated by providing infrastructure support (by Samsung, 2012), skills and knowledge transfer (Google (2016-2018, and Facebook, 2017-2018). Furthermore, Mobile Lab services are extended to local institutions that require assistance in organizing and hosting of programming hackathons. This ensure knowledge transfer and eliminate unnecessary duplication of effort in the Namibian technology sector.

- Software programmers that are working on the mobile app projects - Tech entrepreneurs who seek to develop their business ideas into mobile apps - Academic staff members who want to engage their students into real world programming - Industry and individuals who are interested in digitalizing solutions

The Mobile Lab is fully owned by the Namibian University of Science & Technology, and currently has one permanent staff, Mr. Leonard Imene who coordinates the activities by working with the youth members of the NBII Developer Circle. (https://www.facebook.com/groups/NBICDeveloperCircle/?ref=bookmarks). The youth members voluntarily offer trainings and facilitate hackathons at the Mobile Lab.