Rural Innovation Workshop

Rural innovation generally refers to the process of improving the quality of life and economic well being of the entrepreneurs in rural areas.

The workshop was attended by people working on rural development in Namibia. They want to educate the rural entrepreneurs on how they commercialise their products and how they can scale their products in the market. They want to develop a model for rural innovation so that entrepreneurs can benefit from it and learn what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur.

They used a good example of India National Rural Development (Honey Bee Network). The Indians work miles every day to share ideas with their rural entrepreneurs, and ask the villagers what they need in their villages. Through these processes, they host village meetings, looking at survey done by students, local network and media and the use cell phones and laptop to document these surveys. People who carry out these surveys are volunteers we hope to have similar people in Namibia for the benefit of economic growth of our country.

The participants had so many questions regarding the challenges in rural areas most of them are concerned if research was done regarding this issues. Some have pointed out that lack of infrastructure and skilled people in Namibia can be a huge threat to the development of rural entrepreneurs.

The participants posted their ideas on the notice board and all these questions they had been answered by discussing all the notes posted on the notice board.

The workshop closed by discussing how they can engage Namibia rural population in innovation and entrepreneurship. We hope for more of these workshops to continue for the upliftment of rural development in Namibia.