Co-designing digital service with marginalised or unemployed Namibian youth: A participatory design approach to self actualisation.

Namibia has an alarming youth unemployment rate of about 46.1% in 2018, with a general lack of employment opportunities for less qualified individuals. Preliminary research has shown that participatory design is a promising approach to unleash Namibian youth’s potential and positive attitudes towards new approaches to participate in socio-economic activities and thereby contribute to social change.

It is postulated that a participatory design process of digital services and technologies on the one side leads to more relevant and appropriate ICT artefacts while on the other hand empowers marginalised unemployed youth by unleashing their creativity, motivation and innovation that can lead to a self-actualised individual. Thus the theoretical basis for this thesis is Self-actualization and Social identity theory while action and design research are the methodological foundations in which the digital service development is validated.