The State of Technology in Namibia

The tech world is moving at such a fast pace. Headlines like “Artificial Intelligence is coming to take your job”, “China’s DeepSeek AI model crashed the US stock market” and “Tiktok is getting banned in the US” took the world by storm. There is so much change happening in the blink of an eye with so much more information readily accessible over the internet than ever before. However, where does that leave everybody’s favourite sunny holiday destination, Namibia, The Land of the Brave?

Generative Artificial Intelligence

Generative AI refers to deep-learning models that can generate high-quality text, images, and other content based on the data they were trained on. Anybody that has used ChatGPT can attest to how awesome AI is. It is like having your own junior assistant that does the heavy lifting for you. Are you stuck on a topic you don’t understand? Just prompt an AI chatbot and it will answer you politely way without being judgemental. Does your research paper introduction sound like it needs a bit of flavour? You know the answer (always cite your work to avoid plagiarism).

The applications of GenAI are limitless. It is easy to use, accessible and so helpful. AI has a tendency to hallucinate though so always double check the work. Since GenAI is trained on public data, it also important to verify the output and credit original authors. GenAI sparks a huge debate on plagiarism and copyright infringement and the legislation is not yet in place in Namibia to govern how personal data is used. Fears of AI replacing humans are also prevalent, but AI like any technology is just a tool. In the hands of an expert, productivity skyrockets. In order to remain relevant, upskilling is a necessity.

AI’s image generation is also redefining digital art and the creative space. Models like Stable Diffusion are able to create amazing works of art. However, these models lack the “Africa-centric” element so the challenge is for Namibia to dictate its own journey to overcome the cultural bias from limited African content, there is great potential for Namibia to provide curate data and train models on or own cultures to better represent our diversity. It is not a far-fetched notion that Namibia can contribute towards the drive towards Artificial General Intelligence – where machine that possesses the ability to understand or learn any intellectual task that a human being can.

Internet Access

Many Namibians use the internet daily to get the latest news, use social media to share memories and stay in touch with loved ones, have a good laugh from a Youtube video or Tiktok, listen to music on Spotify or advertise their businesses. This is largely made possible by the underlying network infrastructure sported by the telecommunication giants such as MTC Namibia, Telecom Namibia and Paratus. Urban towns and the great city of Windhoek benefit from the stable maintenance of these communication channels with fibre optics connections becoming more mainstream and 4G network coverage. Unfortunately, Namibia still trudges behind the rest of the world which is chasing after the 5th Industrial Revolution in terms of 5G network coverage. The telecommunications regulator of Namibia, CRAN, has recently categorically stated that there are no 5G base stations in Namibia yet.

On top of that, a large fraction of the population still depends on using data bundles to access the internet. This can quickly become expensive when even the classrooms are adopting e-learning especially after the infamous breakout of the COVID-19 pandemic. Network coverage proves to be left wanting with several regions still face significant gaps. In Kavango West, for example, 14.1% of the population has only 2G coverage, while 55% lacks any network coverage.

Cybersecurity

As more Namibians hop online, nefarious characters with malicious intent are also hunting down innocent victims to catch as prey with their online scams. Cyberattacks have started running rampant with Telecom Namibia and the Ministry of Health and Social Services being the latest high-profile entities to have their cyber-defences trialed and tested.

Recently, hackers stole nearly 500,000 pieces of information including personal and financial data belonging to ministries, senior government officials and other company clients and leaked these records on the dark web. It is advisable to take extra precautions not to share sensitive details online and to avoid suspicious links and feel-good competitions shared on WhatsApp. If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. Do not log onto sensitive portals like online banking profiles on public computers or over insecure networks as these can be easily hijacked.

These incidents of cyber-crimes are a wake-up call to all companies that protecting their cyber assets is key to efficient service delivery. Cybersecurity should not be an after-thought and policies should be adopted internally to ensure the highest compliance to security best practices. Fortunately, Namibia though in its digital infancy, has a high yield of capable graduates in the cybersecurity field. The new era of the Guardians of the Web has a tall task ahead from not only automating most of the paper-based information systems, but also educating the masses to stay secure online, as it is everyone’s responsibility.

A gold mine of budding startups

Where there lies adversity, inversely, opportunities are presented in the multitude. To rise up to these challenges young entrepreneurs all over the country have risen to solve these socio-economic problems. The government and private institutions like Start-Up Namibia are working together to create support structures for start-ups are still in their very early stages, but showing great promise for the future. Which is a positive push to combat the high unemployment rate by empowering the youth to create their own jobs.

YYeni AI delivers mastery-focused, personalized learning to improve academic performance while empowering teachers to focus on what matters most. The vibrant founder of YYeni, Vitalis Haupindi has been successful in raising funds to tackle the increase in learner’s unable to make it into tertiary institutions. One reason his work has noted is that schools don’t have enough resources, and teachers are overwhelmed. YYeni uses AI technology to give each student a personalized learning experience, similar to having a tutor.

The advancement of tech startups is changing healthcare by making medical services more accessible and efficient. Apps like Patient Care are transforming the way individuals manage their health by offering affordable and reliable consultations with top doctors from the comfort of their homes. With secure access to medical support, users can easily schedule appointments, access their medical records, and receive personalized medical advice anytime.

TrainingBunny aims to close the bridge between skills development and the corporate world. The startup collaborates with domain experts to deliver the highest quality training content perfect for corporate and business audiences. Their courses are in bite-sizes, relatable and cover a wide range of topics perfectly suited to the corporate and business audiences.

In conclusion, these are certainly exciting times to be in Namibia and invest in the development of the sleeping tiger awaiting to awaken and disrupt Africa and the world. The vast untapped potential that lies in the youth’s vigour and energy is begging to be released with investment opportunities, sound legislation and a chance to prove their worth to the world.