External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday inaugurated the Namibia University's IT centre, known as The India Namibia Centre of Excellence in Information Technology (INCEIT), built with Indian help.

EAM Jaishankar hailed the newly inaugurated INCEIT as a "reflection of India's strengthening partnership with Africa."

The centre, equipped with cutting-edge IT infrastructure, is a product of the collaborative efforts between India and Namibia in development, cooperation, and capacity-building.

Speaking at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) in the Capital Windhoek, Jaishankar labeled the IT centre as a 'bridge' between the academia and tech industries of the two countries —India and Namibia.

This centre started offering courses going back to November 2019, when the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) provided the course materials, the reference books, and much of the IT hardware and software, EAM said.

“The remaining installations were completed in very challenging circumstances during the Pandemic,” Jaishankar added.

Speaking on the trainers teaching at the INCEIT, EAM informed that six master trainers from Namibia were given training in CDAC in India.

The Centre is additionally equipped with a CDAC PARAM Supercomputer with High-Performance Computing (HPC) Applications. Now, since its deployment, the supercomputer has seen the installation of numerous application software to ensure its optimum usage.

Acknowledging the support and collaboration of the Vice Chancellor and his team, Minister Jaishankar expressed gratitude for their “unstinted support and collaboration to make this project a reality with the objective of developing industry-oriented programmes to address skill requirements in areas such as cybersecurity, big data analytics and e-governance applications and software development.”

The Centre has been able to offer courses and to train more than 275 professionals, government officials from various ministries students, teachers, and researchers, Jaishankar informed.

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Africa in 2018, he declared that the priority of our partners is India’s priority. Regarding the digital domain, PM Modi observed that we will harness India’s experience with the digital revolution to support and strengthen Africa’s development, improve the delivery of public services, extend education and health, and mainstream the marginalized. "That is at the core of our partnership,” said EAM Jaishankar.

According to Jaishankar, the best partnership [between ally nations] is to develop human capital institutions that equip and empower nations to pursue growth as per their own priorities.

"India has been at the forefront in providing capacity building and training to Namibian nationals under the I-tech Indian technical and economic cooperation program and ICCS scholarship schemes, and various professional courses," said EAM.

He invoked the example of India's digital success in Namibia. CoWIN app provided the technological data backbone for the COVID-19 vaccination program in India, said Jaishankar, adding that it delivered over 2.5 billion doses of vaccination, effectively.

Image source: ANI