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Global Perspective Photo Gallery: Windhoek, Namibia

Insights from the Student Photographer

Adam Basilio

• Hometown: Fitchburg, MA
• Major: Management Engineering
• Minor: International Studies
• Class of 2007

For my Interactive Qualifying Project (IQP) I traveled to Windhoek, Namibia with 22 other WPI students. There were 6 interdisciplinary groups of 3-4 students. In the group that I worked in, it was myself, a biomedical engineering major, and two Biology major, so it wasn’t too interdisciplinary. While in Windhoek we were housed in the residential hostels of the Polytechnic of Namibia (‘The Poly’). With these living arrangements we were able to get to know the students at the Poly very well. In addition to the 23 WPI students, 2 WPI Faculty advisors also traveled with us. Prof. Rick Vaz and Prof. Chrys Demetry served as the faculty advisors for each of the 6 project groups in Windhoek.

For my project, I worked with the City of Windhoek’s Corporate Communications and Tourism division on a project investigating the feasibility of installing 24-hour touch screen tourist information centers throughout the city of Windheok. For the project we interviewed numerous tourists in and around the city of Windhoek, as well as business owners throughout the city to first determine if visitors would use these kiosks and second to determine the financial sustainability of the kiosks through the use of advertisements. From this study we established that tourists would use the kiosks and they would be sustainable through the selling of advertising space on the kiosk. Our next step was to make recommendations to the City of Windhoek’s Corporate Communications and Tourism Division in regards to what content should be included in the kiosk, potential hardware and software designs that would be most economically feasible, in addition to potential location for placement.