Creating a smart city

The Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST), in collaboration with various institutions, held a smart city hunt last week in order to bring attention to United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular the ninth goal, industry, innovation and infrastructure, as well as the 11th goal, sustainable cities and communities.

The university worked in collaboration with the City of Windhoek, National Commission on Research Science and Technology and telecommunications giant MTC as well as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The hunt started off at the Zoo Park amphitheatre in the capital where participants were divided into groups - each team consisted of a member from either UNDP or the City, a student from NUST and a member from the Havana youth group. When teams where grouped, they were introduced to an app that they could use to receive instructions for the hunt.

At their first station, they had some sporty fun where they had to choose between a sustainable city and sustainable community and used either a netball, basketball, soccer ball or rugby ball to shoot goals, according to the sport code chosen.

Thereafter, the app lead them to two stations, however, before getting there, they had to answer a few clues that had to do with the SDGs. The next two stations where located in Katutura, of which one was in Havana, and they had to build their ideal smart city. The next station was at the UN Plaza and they had to do some smart shopping using the app.

Moreover, after all these activities, the teams cycled back to NUST, taking turns at different stopping points. They used e-bikes provided by the City. The day ended with a final ceremony at the High Tech Transfer Plaza on the university’s main campus.