NUST partners with NCRT for global intercultural project
NUST students from the Faculty of Computing and Informatics are set to take part in a first of its kind learning experience where they will engage in an international interdisciplinary project that involves distributed software development across four continents.
The project, called Global Intercultural Project Experience (GIPE), is funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and coordinated by the Westphalian University of Applied Sciences (WH). Additionally, universities from Peru and Indonesia are also involved.
As part of the initiative, students from NUST will be working with their counterparts from the partner universities to develop a base version for the new nationwide Science Technology and Innovation (STI) portal. The portal will be used by Namibia’s National Commission on Research Science and Technology (NCRST). The NCRST entrusted NUST to champion this project.
Professor Dr Manfred Meyer from (WH), the Project Manager for GIPE, who is currently visiting NUST expressed his excitement: “This will offer NUST students the opportunity to gain a truly Global Intercultural Project Experience, by working together with fellow students from around the world.”
The project is funded for a period of four years, thus enabling four annual student projects to take, giving almost 30 local students the opportunity to travel to Germany. There they will work with students from Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia (AJCUI) in Indonesia, the Universidad Católica San Pablo (UCSP) in Peru and WH in Germany.
After a planning meeting held at WH in October 2019 and selecting the students to receive a scholarship by DAAD, the main project work will kick-off next week. At NUST, the project is fully integrated within the Advanced Software Development (ASD) Honours course in the Faculty of Computing and Informatics. Professor Heike Winschiers-Theophilus from the Faculty has been involved in an previous bilateral predecessor project between NUST and co-designed the GIPE project. “All students from the ASD course will be part of the project, supporting their fellows who will be selected to attend the Spring School.”
The base version of the new STI portal will be presented to the NCRST in approximately five months.
