How can entrepreneurship education in emerging economies stay ahead of global change? My week at Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) in Windhoek showed how service design can turn ambition into real-world impact.
Reimagining entrepreneurship education
The challenges in Namibia are clear for many to see just by touring different neighbourhoods in the capital Windhoek and beyond. With a huge unemployment problem anywhere from 30-50% depending on who you ask and how you count, there is no lack of ambition or opportunities for improvement for Namibian visionaries and entrepreneurs. There is, unfortunately, a lack of investment available to them.
These challenges were shown and communicated to me in the classroom, in the boardroom, and on a visit to the informal settlement of Katutura during the five days I was hosted by NUST’s Directorate of Research, Innovation, and Partnerships (DRIP) and NUST Innovation (NUSTi). The context is vital to understand to see how entrepreneurship education fits into Namibia’s future. You can read more about Namibian urban development on Weber & Mendelsohn’s (2017) book Informal settlements in Namibia.
Innovation in action: startups tackling Namibia’s pressing challenges
While meeting with individual entrepreneurs in their startup ecosystem, I was able to learn about many issues that are challenging Namibia at the moment. One, by Pulsar Electronics, was focused on two outcomes, making it easier for everyday Namibians to pay for their household electricity in their pre-pay system (as opposed to Finland’s post-pay system where we pay at the end of each month). While on the other hand, their smart pre-pay system would also incorporate a router that would give even more households access to the internet.
Another startup, PatientCare, is working on expanding more affordable healthcare to many more people. In a system where there is no real functioning public healthcare that is conducive to productive work (meaning that seeking help at a hospital can take an entire day or even more), PatientCare is aiming high with their app and brick and mortar healthcare clinics.
I am happy to see that NUSTi is really teaching problem-solving and not just business planning. Like with CanTech who spotted the problem of the lack of African data centers which means that data collected by Namibian companies and even the government, needs to be stored outside the country and even the continent. Many websites need to be hosted in South Africa, making Namibians reliant on South African companies when they need updates or changes to their websites. Or when they want to gather data, it needs to be stored off-shore in Europe or the United States. So CanTech wants to change this by building a data center in Namibia. But this requires a relatively large monetary investment and the laying of an additional undersea cable.
Why service design matters for Namibia’s entrepreneurs
Finland has built a global reputation for excellence in service design. Coming from a Finnish institution, where service design has become central to how we re-think education, healthcare, or entrepreneurship, I wanted to share how this approach could help NUST students to tackle Namibia’s own challenges. Some of these I saw firsthand, noting the deep-rooted challenges they face.
Service design in this context can get entrepreneurs closer to their customers faster than traditional market research and helping students to focus on the problem in a customer-centric way, rather than a customer-focused way, is very important. These are small but important nudges in a different direction than traditional innovation methods.
Currently, the overall entrepreneurial education happening at NUST is impressive with their ICE course (Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship) that reaches almost every student on campus. This course is one semester long and is mandatory for 75% of the students, moving to 100% next year, and it challenges the students to come up with a business idea and to explore it, secure some initial funding for it, and to present it for evaluation. This course could easily help to spread the skills required for solid customer research, prototyping, and an iterative process.
Service design can help. With a few tweaks to entrepreneurial education, they will be more than ready for the changes they envision. These changes, as mentioned above, will merely enhance the great teaching they already get and allow them to flourish faster and with a stronger foundation. This more human-centred and impact-oriented learning will help the future of Namibia to bring their ideas to life. It will help them to solidify their solutions to what users need and want while making sure they have the biggest impact for society. This will also help them to communicate their ideas and why they are important and the impact they will have better to any investors that come their way.
When entrepreneurs learn to design with people, and not just for them, innovation becomes more than invention – it becomes a tool for equality and sustainable growth. With the entrepreneurial spirit that exists in Namibia, NUST is not only nurturing startups, with service design, they can create a new model of inclusive innovation for Africa’s future.
References
Namibia University of Science and Technology n.d. Strategic Plan 2021-2025 (PDF). Accessed on 4.12.2025.
Weber, B. & Mendelsohn, J. 2017. Informal settlements in Namibia: their nature and growth: Exploring ways to make Namibian urban development more socially just and inclusive (PDF). Accessed on 4.12.2025.
Author
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Pamela Spokes
Specialist, TurbiiniPamela Spokes BA, MA, MBA, AmO. Educator in Service Design and Entrepreneurship with the Turbiini Pre-Incubator Programme in English.
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