On Thursday, 19 September 2013, academics from Wits University joined journalists from LeadSA to create and edit content in an attempt to increase the size and accuracy of the South African footprint on the world’s largest online encyclopedia.
Millions of people use Wikipedia. The English version alone is accessed by two million people daily. But only 7% of the articles in the English edition were created by people outside Europe and North America. What about Africa?
In particular, what about South Africa?
Media organisations are already bracing for a massive increase in international interest in the country during our 20 year anniversary of democracy in 2014. For many, Wikipedia will be their first port of call.
South Africa has a rich heritage – a turbulent past and a promising future. With the added incentive of capturing some of this heritage ahead of Heritage Day on Tuesday, 24 September 2013, the Wikipedia Wordathon participants arrived at the venue – Primedia Place in Sandton – with sharp minds and quick typing fingers.
The Wikipedia Wordathon started with a war: Two players, two different Wikipedia pages, and a contest to see who could get from the first page to the second using only the links embedded in the pages themselves.
Lee Berger, Research Professor at the Evolutionary Studies Institute and the Centre of Excellence in PalaeoSciences, was the first to finish creating a new article. His subject was the two million year old fossil fox discovered at the now renowned archaeological site of Malapa in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site (see Vulpes skinneri).
Also taking part were Robert Thornton, Professor in the Department of Anthropology; Letlotlo Phohole, Chief Technology Systems Officer at the Transnet Centre for Systems Engineering; Dylan Weakley, Associate Researcher in the School of Architecture and the Built Environment; and Bradley Rautenbach, Team Leader on the Wits Solar Car Project.
LeadSA has invited Wits University to participate in an initiative to populate Wikipedia with articles written by South Africans ahead of Heritage Day on Tuesday, 24 September 2013.
At the moment only 7% of articles in the English edition of Wikipedia were created by people outside Europe and North America. We would like to play a small part in changing that. The aim is also to prepare for the expected increase in focus on South Africa during the 20 year anniversary of democracy in our country next year.
It is up to you what article you create (or edit) – the Wits community has expertise on a vast range of topics and we need it all! When you are done with your article, please notify kanina.foss@wits.ac.za
We will collate all the articles and publish links to them on the Wits website. The Wikipedia Wordathon will also be publicised by LeadSA media partners – Independent Newspapers and Primedia.
Anyone can add an article, but depending on the page and the topic, it may require a review by one of the more than 70 000 voluntary editors to address issues with style and accuracy.
For a list of already written articles about South Africa which could be expanded upon, click here.
You are now ready to become a new editor of the World’s largest Encyclopaedia and collaborative project!
About Wikipedia
Wikipedia is an online encyclopaedia that can be edited by anyone. It was started in 2001 and now has over four million articles in English. The number of visitors to the site allows it to rank as one of the top 10 most popular websites. More information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About
Lack of respect is SA’s downfall
- By Wits University
The lack of respect for each other and for people holding different views are the biggest challenges facing South Africa today, Dr Mamphela Ramphele told students during a Leadership Roundtable held at Wits on Wednesday, 25 September 2013.
Hosted by the Student Development and Leadership Unit (SDLU), the roundtable was titled Leadership with a Social Agenda: Inspiring Others towards Social Change.
Ramphele has been a student activist, a medical doctor, a community development activist, a researcher, a university executive, a global public servant and is now an active citizen in both the public and private sectors.She was one of the founders of the Black Consciousness Movement together with Steve Biko, Barney Pityana and others.
Sharing her experiences in the Liberation Struggle, Ramphele said one of the biggest challenges for her generation was to liberate the mind first. But sadly today, she said, many young people are not opening up their minds and letting in new and different views. She had harsh words for those who show no respect to people holding different views and who are not willing to listen and debate in a constructive way.
She also urged students not to accept the mediocrity around them. “I have to lead my life in a way that the personal, the professional and the political values that drives the decisions I make in those domains have to be in harmony,” she said.
Click to listen to her full address.
The Student Development and Leadership Unit provides administrative, training and development support to the Student Representative Council (SRC) and its clubs and societies. The SDLU creates an environment that is enabling and empowering, and one that allows the space for constructive debate and critical enquiry for the benefit of the students.
Global first as Witsies split pollen
- By Wits University
Wits researchers have become the first to cut sections through pollen grains and make it possible to view a three dimensional image of the internal wall. This positions them to determine how the characteristics of the internal wall help to classify plants of particular interest.
PhD student Alisoun House has become the international pioneer of this technique with her research on Acanthaceae, a notably eurypalynous (wide range of pollen features), large family of plants whose classification remains contentious.
It’s difficult to find features that define Acanthaceae as a family but one of the features that has been used is pollen. Until now, all of the research has been done by looking at the external features of the pollen – what it looks like on the outside.
Under the supervision of Professor Kevin Balkwill, House used a focussed ion beam-scanning electron microscope (FIB-SEM) to slice through the pollen grains of species belonging to Acanthaceae. She then used an ordinary scanning electron microscope (SEM) to look at the inside walls exposed by the cut.
‘Kevin had the idea that this microscope could be used. People have used it to look at fossilised pollen but it’s the first time it’s been done on fresh pollen from living plants,’ says House.
The FIB-SEM is like an ordinary SEM but where the SEM uses a focused beam of electrons to image the surface of a sample in the chamber, the FIB uses a focused beam of ions to cut a section through a sample in a chosen position. Wits has one of only two or three FIB-SEMs in the country.
House’s experiments proved that it was possible to use the technique to get a three dimensional image of the internal wall structure of the pollen grains.
‘We can now see features in the internal wall that we couldn’t see before using older technology which afforded only thin, two dimensional slices,’ says House.
She will now investigate whether the images are able to further prove similarities between different plants within the family, making the technique a good taxonomic tool. The hope is that these newly visible features of the internal walls of pollen grains will add to the body of information and enable more accurate classifications.
Caption:
Whole pollen grain of Justicia flava and a cross section showing the whole cut surface.
Scale bars 2µm
Caption:
Whole pollen grain of Isoglossa ovata and a cross section through the whole grain.
Scale bars 3µm
Charity begins at home
- By Wits University
Students have dug deep into their pockets and sacrificed their already limited time to collect resources which will assist fellow students confronted by hunger.
Project W, a Wits student activist group, has handed over more than 3000 cans of non-perishable food and a cash donation to the University for distribution to vulnerable students on campus.
These will be allocated by the Wits Volunteer Programme (WVP), an office in the Division of Student Affairs which currently supports close to 200 students threatened by food insecurity due to financial challenges.
While many students receive financial aid from the government through its National Student Financial Aid Scheme, many more deserving students are unable to access this support and face financial challenges which impact on their academic success.
A survey by Project W polling 3000 students revealed that lack of accommodation, academic support and hunger were three of the major challenges facing vulnerable students.
Awande Zwane, Project W Chairwoman says that the food will ensure that no student is hungry, especially during this period when most Witsies are preparing for exams.
Zwane has expressed gratitude towards Wits students and staff members who responded to their Give-A-Can campaign.
“None of this would have been possible without their support,” says Zwane.
The group also received a substantial cash donation from an anonymous donor.
Receiving the food consignment and the donation on behalf of the University, Karuna Singh, Manager of the WVP, commended the efforts by Project W to mobilise resources and building a caring student body.
The initiative by Project W adds to the University's ongoin efforts to address food insecurity.
Next week the WVP will undertake a massive food packaging initiative.
Wits Volunteers collaborate to Stop Hunger Now
The Wits Volunteer Progamme (WVP) has partnered with Stop Hunger Now SA to package 30 000 meals for 1 000 Wits students. The meals should sustain one person for one month. Stop Hunger Now SA has contributed R82 500 towards this initiative. Two hundred volunteers are needed to form a production line to pack parcels. The meal packaging event takes place on 4 October 2013 from 10:00 onwards on the Library Lawns.
“The meal packaging event is meant to be a fun and rewarding experience. It is also an opportunity for our volunteers to be part of an initiative which supports fellow Witsies,” says Singh.
The nutritious food hampers will be distributed to students who have been assessed based on need.
Food hampers are always available from the Office of the Dean of Students through the mass collections that are constantly being undertaken. The Office also supplies personal hygiene products to both male and female students to counter self-isolation or victimisation. Food and toiletry collection initiatives are on-going throughout the year.
To participate in the food packaging exercise or to donate contact: Karuna.Singh@wits.ac.za or (011) 717-9103.
ABOUT STOP HUNGER NOW
Stop Hunger Now SA is an international organisation that coordinates the distribution of food and other life-saving aids worldwide.
Elites, cut a deal now - Habib
- By Wits University
Wits University Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Professor Adam Habib's recently released his new book titled South Africa's Suspended Revolution: Hopes and prospects and took part in the Mail&Guardian newspaper’s annual Literary Festival.
His new book addresses inequality in South Africa and warns our economic elites to 'compromise now or risk losing everything'. Watch a five minute edited video on Habib’s responses during question time on the M&G website.
Wits University Press in association with TrustAfrica provides an opportunity to engage with Habib on his new book.
Adam Habib will be in discussion with Ferial Haffajee (editor of City Press) and Steven Friedman (Director, Centre for the Study of Democracy Rhodes University/University of Johannesburg) - in association with Trust Africa.
It is that time of the year when the cold season morphs into spring, we shed our winter coats… and celebrate Wits Pride!
Wits Pride 2013 takes place in and around the University between 7 and 14 September 2013 under the theme Being Me, a week-long dedication to merge the diverse personalities, gender identities and sexual orientations at Wits.
Hosted by the Wits Transformation Office, in collaboration with Activate, the Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action (GALA), the Counselling and Careers Development Unit (CCDU), Wits Sport and Voice of Wits, Wits Pride Week 2013 hopes to involve all people whether they identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex and asexual (LGBTIA) or not. The organisers have also made sure to make the programme as accessible as possible to those with disabilities.
This year brings a smorgasbord of entertainment and events geared towards supporting and raising awareness of LGBTIA daily life.
“The theme for Wits Pride 2013 is Being Me, and with all the events in our programme we want to show that it is okay to “be you” – lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, asexual, straight … or none of the above,” says Wits Pride 2013 Programme Manager, Ella Kotze.
“One of the aims of Wits Pride 2013 is to establish a safe campus community for all our students and staff. This is particularly important in light of the rising number of attacks on queer South Africans, especially lesbians and trans-women.”
In a program bigger, brighter and better than any of its forerunners, Wits Pride 2013 will join hands between students and those supportive of LGBTIA issues to show their pride and also to remember the struggle the LGBTIA community has faced in obtaining their rights.
The festivities have already kicked off with a precursor event in the form of a Queer Drawing Marathon which took place on Saturday, 31 August 2013. The official start takes place this weekend, Saturday, 7 September 2013 when a Queer History Tour departing from the Old Fort at Constitution Hill takes off. The tour will include a walking tour of Constitution Hill and Hillbrow, part of GALA’s mission to popularise queer history and experience by developing creative ways of introducing straight and queer people alike to the wealth of information collected.
Other highlights of Wits Pride 2013 include a new t-shirt design competition, inviting students to submit t-shirt designs around the theme Pushing your Boundaries, with a great prize for the winner. Read more about the t-shirt design competition here.
The week-long programme also includes an art exhibition of Germaine de Larch, an information tent and safe zones mapping, and of course, the pinnacle of every Wits Pride, the Pride March.
The march takes place towards the end of Pride Week on Friday, 13 September 2013 between 13:00 and 14:00, starting at the Library Lawns, making its way past the Great Hall, down Yale Road across West Campus and back to the Library Lawns again.
The Wits Pride 2013 programme is available on Facebook or for more information contact Tish.White@wits.ac.za on (011) 717-1405.
Media coverage
Print
Broadcast
Getting the best to Wits
- By Buhle Zuma
The global war for top talent has made it necessary for universities to deploy new tactics in securing top minds and Wits is delving even deeper into the pool to identify top learners – the talent that will enable the University to retain its competitive edge and make inroads into new knowledge territory.
This weekend Wits launched Future Witsie, aprogramme geared towards high school learners with the intention of recruiting the best high school learners to Wits. The crème de la crème from Wits’ top feeder schools in Gauteng attended Saturday’s launch of the exclusive programme open to promising talent.
Wits Vice-Chancellor and Principal Professor Adam Habib and representatives from the university’s five faculties spoke candidly to the learners about the intended outcome of programme.
“The top 100 students have options and they can go anywhere but we brought you here today to show you what Wits is really about,” said Habib.
Habib advised the students to ask key questions when choosing institutions to study at and base their decisions on fact and not perception.
“A university may have a good global ranking but this does not mean that all of its academic programmes are number one,” said Habib.
Habib shared some of Witsies’ recent achievements.
“Wits produces the largest number of medical specialists in the country; the largest number of actuarial scientists; the university’s students clinch top positions in the qualifying exams for chartered accountants; and just recently Wits has been named the best place to study in Africa if you have aspirations of becoming a global CEO.”
Demonstrating the University’s niche across the various fields, Habib said the University has produced “the best minds and leaders for capitalism and the best minds in support of communism. Two ends of the spectrum.”
“Wits is the University of Helen Zille, Joe Slovo, Ruth First, Patrice Motsepe, Adrian Gore and Nobel Laureates such as Nelson Mandela and Nadine Gordimer,” he told learners and parents.
“Wits has ambitions to be a leader in South Africa, the continent and the world."
To build a top institution you need good students and the best academics.”
Research shows that students who excel academically and culturally not only complete their undergraduate degrees on time but they progress to postgraduate studies. Wits intends to increase its postgraduate student population to 50% of the total student population in the coming years.
The Future Witsies programme is a creation of the Schools Liaison Office who has identified key interventions to support the University’s ambitions and demand for top talent.
Part of their artillery is to develop relationships with top high school learners much earlier than is tradition.
Membership to the Future Witsies programme is by invitation only and is open to Grade 11 learners who are nominated by their schools to join the programme. The learners have to excel academically or demonstrate exceptional sports, cultural or leadership capabilities. The perks include a goodie bag with club branded items, exclusive invitations to Wits events; ongoing communication from Wits; mentorship and much more.
The launch of the Future Witsie programme was preceded by an event welcoming the country’s top matriculants (based on the Admissions Point Score calculated from Grade 11 results) who have applied to study at Wits in 2014.
All powered up
- By Erna van Wyk
Physicists from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg have reached an important milestone and have made the first South African contribution of a “piece of hardware” to the ATLAS Experiment on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organization of Nuclear Research (CERN).
Physics PhD student Robert Reed designed a High Voltage board (HV board) that was delivered to the ATLAS team in Geneva, Switzerland. The HV board was successfully integrated into the ATLAS system on Monday, 2 September 2013.
Professor Bruce Mellado from the newly established High Energy Physics Group in the School of Physics at Wits said manufacturing the HV board is “a proof of principle that we in South Africa can deliver with similar standards as our European counterparts. It is also not only an academic exercise, but a real product that will be used for real detector maintenance of the ATLAS detector.” Mellado joined Wits last year having played a leading role in the discovery of the Higgs boson particle with the ATLAS detector.
The LHC shut down in February this year for a two-year maintenance and upgrade programme to boost the level of energy that it uses to smash protons together. It will be back online in 2015. In the meantime, new and upgraded technologies are being developed to assist with the high-level maintenance.
The HV board is located inside the Mobile Drawer Integrity Checking (MobiDICK) system – a mobile version of the test bench which was used during the electronics production at CERN. The HV board is used to produce high voltage to the Photo Multiplier Tubes (PMTs) which are used in the simulation of data taking in order to test the front end electronics of the detector.
The HV board that Reed has designed are used in new mobile testing equipment – a mobile drawer integrity checking system - and its main function is to produce high voltage accurately and reliably. The head technician of the School of Physics, Charles Sandrock coordinated the delivery of electronics components and the production of the board by the local South African electronics industry.
"On the ATLAS detector you have these drawers of electronics that do all the filtering of the raw data that comes out of the detector. These electronics have to be verified and checked before the LHC starts-up in 2015. The new mobile testing equipment basically is a mobile box which the detector maintenance people will use to connect to the detector which would run the test on this drawer of electronics,” Reed explained.
Reed and the High Energy Physics Group will be producing a total of six HV boards for the mobile testing equipment that will be used to test the detector before ATLAS is deployed again for a high energy run.
Reed wrote a paper on his design, titled A Revised High Voltage Board for the Consolidation of Front End Electronics on the Tile Calorimeter of the ATLAS Detector, for which he won the PhD Poster: First Prize at the South African Institute of Physics Conference in July and the PhD Poster: Second Prize at the 5th Cross Faculty Graduate Symposium at Wits. To read his paper, click here
For more information about the High Voltage Board, click here
For more on the High Energy Physics Group at Wits, click here
Professor Lee Berger (FRSSAf Research Professor in Human Evolution and the Public Understanding of Science in the Evolutionary Studies Institute at Wits University and Explorer in Residence for the National Geographic Society) became a full Professor when he delivered his inaugural lecture on Thursday, 26 September 2013.
Berger will now join Senate – the University’s highest academic decision making body.
Professor Helen Laburn, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research, told the audience that inaugural lectures were very special occasions for academics. Wits still follows the centuries old path to admitting an academic to the prestigious ranks of Senate. He or she must first prove an ability to deliver a public lecture on his or her specialised field of study.
Berger’s lecture was titled Bones of Contention: Shifting Paradigms in Human Evolution with the Skeletons of Australopithecus sediba.
ABSTRACT:
The site of Malapa, discovered in 2008, has led to the recovery of perhaps the most complete assemblage of early human ancestor remains yet found as well as the recognition of a new species of human ancestor – Australopithecus sediba. With its mosaic morphology and its combination of extremely derived as well as primitive traits, Au. sediba has brought into question many long held ideas about the mode and tempo of human evolution, even questioning our understanding of the way the genus Homo evolved.
The completeness of the remains and the surprising mosaic anatomy of this species also question our ability to use fragmentary remains from the human fossil record to interpret taxonomy outside of extraordinary context. The remains of Au. sediba appear to herald a paradigm shift in the study of human evolution.
In his inaugural lecture Berger explored the impact of five years of research on Au. sediba and how this work on the most complete remains of this early human ancestor are changing our views on human evolution.
MEDIA:
(pdf)
(mp3)
Kathrada on leadership and challenges facing youth
- By Wits University
Struggle stalwart, Ahmed Kathrada imparted two key lessons to Wits students attending the annual Golden Key Thinkers Symposium themed Thought Revolution: our legacy.
Reflecting on the lives of his comrades and his time as a political prisoner in Robben Island, Kathrada shared valuable lessons on leadership and the price of freedom.
Kathrada was sentenced to prison at the end of the Rivonia Trail in June 1964, along with Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Andrew Mlangeni, Ellias Motsoaledi and Raymond Mhlaba.
As the only Indian in the group, Kathrada was supplied with pants and socks to keep warm in the cold winter days and enjoyed a quarter loaf of brown bread daily. The other ‘Bantu’ prisoners were allocated shorts and no socks irrespective of the season, and had a diet of pap and mealies.
“Mandela got his bread after 10 years and I got a little more soup than him,” said Kathrada.
As political prisoners they wanted to reject the continuation of apartheid policies in prison which privileged Indian and Coloured prisoners over blacks but Mandela said: “You would be completely wrong, you would be politically wrong. You never give up what you’ve got. You fight for equality at a higher level but you don’t give up what you have got.”
Racially differentiated diets, limited resources and other collective decisions had the potential to divide the prisoners but leadership ensured that they remained as one and upheld the principles of the struggle.
This, Kathrada said was a test of true leadership as well the unwavering solidarity during trying times such as hard labour, hunger strikes and temptations of early release from jail in exchange for denouncing the struggle.
“If any of our leaders had accepted preferential treatment our morale would have been dampened. They were with us through every bit of hardship. That was one of the important factors that kept our morale.”
The tension of accepting certain privileges and sacrificing other allowances required selfless leaders who understood sacrificing for greater good, said the aged politician.
Katharada also reminded students that the freedom that they enjoy today was paid for at a great cost and therefore, they have a responsibility to educate themselves and fight today’s challenges which he said were hunger, unemployment and diseases.
Click to listen to Kathrada.
Read a post event article by the South African Press Association.
The 2013 Golden Key Symposium was held on 18 September 2013 at the Great Hall. The annual symposium seeks to create an environment that fosters thought and provides a platform for individuals from different sectors and different interest groups in society to think about, and critically debate topical issues. With a focus on youth and university students, the symposium also aims to promote values of good citizenship; an ethos of constant and continuous thought and action; awareness and sensitivity to humankind.
Other speakers were Dr Ridwan Mia, Wits alumnus who spearheaded the skin graft operation for burn victim Pippie Kruger, as well as Penny Heyns, Professor Bonita Meyersfeld, Judge Fayeeza Kathree-Setiloane, and award winning photographers Graeme Williams, Jodi Bieber and Peter Morey.
Top award for Glenda Gray
- By Wits University
Professor Glenda Gray is the 2013 winner of the European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) Award for outstanding African scientist.
The EDCTP aims to accelerate the development of new or improved drugs, vaccines, microbicides and diagnostics against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, with focus on phase II and III clinical trials in sub-Saharan Africa.
Gray is the Director and founder member of the Wits-affiliated Perinatal HIV Research Unit (PHRU) at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto. Earlier this year, Gray was also awarded with a National Order, the Order Mapungubwe (Silver) for her life-saving research in mother-to-child transmission of HIV and AIDS which has changed the lives of people in South Africa and abroad. Her work has not only saved the lives of many children, but also improved the quality of life for many others with HIV and AIDS.
The EDCTP Award – that consists of a trophy and a cash prize - is aimed at fostering the research activities of the winner. The funds could be used on activities such as support for short study periods at other institutions, library research, and collection of data for baseline studies or facilitation of travel for attendance of pertinent conferences or meetings.
Gray will receive the Award at the Seventh EDCTP Forum to be held in Dakar, Senegal on 23 October 2013.
Wits Sport Stars
- By Buhle Zuma
Wits sportsmen and women swapped their sporting kits for a night of glamour and applause last night at the Wits Sports Council (WSC) awards function.
The annual Sports Awards recognising the sporting achievements of Wits students were held in the Linder Auditorium at the Wits School of Education Campus. The stars of the night were in good company surrounded by friends, family and members of the Wits Community from various departments.
The Council awarded Full Blue Cum Laude colours to three Witsies for earning Senior Springbok colours. The trio, Cornelius Rudolph van Schalkwyk (Architectural Studies), Calvin Fourie (Bachelor of Education) and Priscilla Garvey (Engineering), have represented the country at international level and have an interest in codes falling under the discipline of martial arts.
Full Blue Awards and Half Colour Awards were given to 45 students participating in a wide range of sporting codes.
Inter-residence sport is a key feature of student life at Wits. The men from the Ernest Oppenheimer Hall of Residence seem to have the best dribbling skills and collected both accolades under the Wits Football Internal League.
The Karate Club walked away with the Sport Club of the Year title and is due to have its Club House upgraded by Paul Ndiweni, Engineering student and WSC Chairman.
Women’s basketball player Fortunate Bosega and Judo master Cornelius Rudolf van Schalkwyk were crowned Wits Sportswoman and Sportsman of the Year. Bosega was selected for the South African U20 team which competed in Zambia, the Wits USSA team as well as the Limpopo senior provincial team winning gold and silver medals in these tournaments.
Van Schalkwyk qualified for the African Kata Championship where he came in second place in the Katame-no-Kata, was awarded Senior Protea Colours in March and finished first in the SA Open Championships (Group 5 U/1000kg).
The Council did not only recognise physical prowess but also awarded certificates to seven individuals who have made exceptional contributions to the advancement of sport at Wits University.
The guest speaker Dr Jon Patricios, a sport physician and Wits alumnus, delivered a thought provoking message to the Witsies.
Patricios implored Witsies to ask critical questions about professional sport.
“Given the high risks associated with sport and the short career span, professional sport is not a good career option when placed into context,” he told a surprised audience.
Patricios said that the “focus of universities should be on creating professionals who can play sport instead of producing professional sportsmen”.
“Sport is important for the profile of the university, however, it is imperative to produce educated and engaged individuals who have sustainable careers,” said Patrcios.
He further advised the University to repackage sport and furthermore promote the benefits of exercise that are well documented.
March for your sexuality!
- By Vivienne Rowland
Concluding what promises to be an epic week of fun festivities, entertainment and debate the Wits Pride week 2013 ends off with its pinnacle event, the iconic Pride March.
The march takes place on Friday, 13 September 2013 between 13:00 and 14:00, starting at the Library Lawns, making its way past the Great Hall, down Yale Road across West Campus and back to the Library Lawns again.
Wits Pride 2013 takes place in and around the University between 7 and 14 September 2013 under the theme Being Me, a week-long dedication to merge the diverse personalities, sexual orientations and gender identities at Wits.
Hosted by the Wits Transformation Office, Wits Pride Week 2013 hopes to involve all people whether they identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and asexual (LGBTIA) or not.
This year brings a smorgasbord of entertainment and events geared towards supporting and raising awareness of LGBTIA daily life.
“Pride Marches have become an iconic feature on the LGBTIA landscape. Wits Pride 2013 is not different, and our Pride March on 13 September will turn the Braamfontein Campus into a space that is inclusive of everyone at Wits, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, race, age, nationality, ability or class,” says Wits Pride Programme Manager, Ella Kotze.
“Pride projects around the country form an important part of the South African democratic project. It makes visible the fact that our country is populated by a great variety of people, that all of us stand protected by the same Constitution, and that all of us have the responsibility of protecting each other’s right to live and love the way we want to.”
In a program bigger, brighter and better than any of its forerunners, Wits Pride 2013 will join hands between students and those supportive of LGBTIA issues to show their pride and also to remember the struggle the LGBTIA community has faced in obtaining their rights.
Highlights of Wits Pride 2013 include a new t-shirt design competition, inviting students to submit t-shirt designs around the theme Pushing your Boundaries, a Drawing Marathon; and a Queer History Tour. Read more about the t-shirt design competition here.
The week-long programme also includes an art exhibition of Germaine de Larch, an information tent and safe zones mapping, movie screenings and theatre performances.
The Wits Pride 2013 programme is available on Facebook or for more information contact Tish.White@wits.ac.za on (011) 717-1405.
Sexual harassment report released
- By Wits University
STATEMENT FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND, JOHANNESBURG, PERTAINING TO A REPORT ON SEXUAL HARASSMENT RELEASED IN AUGUST 2013
To read the full report, click
Following a spate of allegations related to sexual harassment on campus, Wits University commissioned an independent inquiry into the nature, scale and extent of the problem on its campuses. Sexual harassment occurs within a context of pervasive gender and sexual violence within South Africa, and in particular within the education system, of which Wits is a part.
The University welcomes the report for its rigour and its constructive recommendations and accepts full responsibility for the abuses committed on its campuses. The report identifies highly discrepant and diverse understandings of the nature of the problem. It critically highlights the inadequacy of the University’s systems to address rumours and allegations decisively, or to support those affected by predatory sexual behaviour. In addition, it also identifies and speaks to the widespread culture of silence that enables and sustains abuse. The report also provides a set of guidelines on policies, organisational structures and systems for the University as it crafts a substantive response to sexual harassment.
The University broadly accepts the findings of the report and welcomes its recommendations. The Senior Executive Team will initiate an action plan and a broad set of interventions, driven directly from the Vice-Chancellor’s Office with the assistance of an Advisory Group. This newly-formed group comprises members of management, staff, leading gender specialists and students.
The University recognises that sexual harassment and sexual predation cannot be eliminated overnight. It will accelerate a process of robust change in governance structures, policies and procedures and the problematic institutional cultures associated with sexual harassment. This will impact gender relations from lecture halls, administration offices, to social spaces such as coffee shops and residences. This process has commenced by providing professional counselling for all directly affected by sexual harassment in recent months.
The University is determined to restore trust and confidence in the institution’s ability to provide a safe environment for all who visit, live and work at Wits. Safety and rapid intervention when required will be foremost in the University's strategy to ensure that any reported incident is dealt with swiftly.
On behalf of the University, the Vice-Chancellor once again apologises to those individuals who have experienced sexual harassment at Wits. The University thanks all the members of the Wits community who helped to address the issue proactively and those who alerted the University to specific cases. Wits remains committed to creating safe spaces on its campuses and developing an institution that responds sensitively and appropriately to all forms of sexual harassment.
Professor Helen Rees appointed Chair of WHO African Task Force on Immunisation
- By Wits University
Wits Reproductive Health Institute (WRHI) is proud to announce that Professor Helen Rees, Executive Director, has been appointed theChairperson of the WHO African Task Force on Immunisation (TFI) for an initial term of three years, effective from 1 September 2013.
The TFI is an advisory body that was established in 1993 as an independent group of public health experts in the African Region. The TFI was mandated to provide independent technical guidance to the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa (WHO/AFRO) in identifying cost-effective strategies aimed at ensuring the delivery of quality immunisation services in the African Region.
Members are selected based on their role as leaders of major immunisation operations. Professor Rees is well known in the field of vaccinology for her tireless work towards the eradication of vaccine-preventable diseases like polio. She is currently completing her term as the Chair of the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Vaccines and Immunisation.
This new appointment is further evidence of the unique global role Professor Rees plays in advancing universal access to life-saving vaccines. For additional information about the Wits RHI or Professor Helen Rees, please contact Ellen Crabtree, External Relations Manager, WRHI, on (011) 358 5397 or email ecrabtree@wrhi.ac.za
Witsies march against homophobia
- By Vivienne Rowland
A sea of orange could be seen marching in all its vibrant glory when Witsies joined the Wits Pride March today, Friday, 13 September 2013.
The pinnacle event of what was a week of fun events and activities under the theme Being Me to raise awareness of diverse personalities, gender identities and sexual orientations at Wits.
Wits Pride 2013 took place from 7 September, ending on 14 September 2013 and hosted by the Wits Transformation Office, in collaboration with Activate, the Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action (GALA), the Counselling and Careers Development Unit (CCDU), Wits Sport and Voice of Wits.
The March started on the Library Lawns, with supporters wearing this year’s bright orange t-shirts and blowing whistles to “blow the whistle on inequality and homophobia”.
Professor Tawana Kupe, Wits Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Finance addressed the 400-people-strong crowd and said Pride at Wits has come a long way.
“Every year more people join the March and that is great progress. We are all protected by the Constitution and we should take this space, march openly and be proud to be ourselves,” said Kupe.
Tasneem Essop, Wits Student Representative Council (SRC) Secretary General also addressed the crowd, which consisted of students, Wits employees and other supporters, and said Pride has the SRC’s full support.
“We are fully behind Pride, but we don’t do nearly enough. We are fully committed to this cause, because Pride needs to go further in the fight against inequality, homophobia and gender discrimination,” said Essop.
Wits Pride Week is held annually with the aim of involving all people whether they identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex and asexual (LGBTIA) or not. The organisers have also made sure to make the programme as accessible as possible to those with disabilities.
“The theme for Wits Pride 2013 is Being Me, and with all the events in our programme we want to show that it is okay to “be you” – lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, asexual, straight … or none of the above,” said Wits Pride 2013 Programme Manager, Ella Kotze.
“One of the aims of Wits Pride 2013 is to establish a safe campus community for all our students and staff. This is particularly important in light of the rising number of attacks on queer South Africans, especially lesbians and trans-women.”
The march started at the Library Lawns, making its way past the Great Hall, down Yale Road across West Campus and back to the Library Lawns again.
Wits is where CEOs study in Africa
- By Wits University
Wits University has emerged as the best place to study in Africa if you have aspirations of becoming a global CEO.
Wits was announced as being positioned among the world top 100 universities, coming in at number 24, in a new ranking published by the Times Higher Education (THE) entitled the THE Alma Mater Index: Global Executives, published recently.
Wits was placed above prestigious institutions such as New York University, Korea University, the University of Stűttgart and Texas A&M University, to name a few; and is the highest ranked institution on the list from Africa.
The inaugural list,revealing the higher education institutions that have educated the current chief executives of the world’s largest companies, pinned Wits at number 24, with the University of Cape Town, the only other African university on the list, coming in at number 79.
"It is gratifying to know that as a university at the heart of the national and continental economy, Wits continues to provide the world with a growing cohort of world class African CEOs," says Professor Adam Habib, Wits Vice-Chancellor and Principal.
The University is in good company – Harvard University in the US emerged in the number one spot, based on the most Fortune Global 500 CEOs that the university has educated.
Harvard beat the University of Tokyo to the first spot, with 5% of the CEOs of the Fortune Global 500 2013 companies having at least one degree from Harvard University, with 3% from the University of Tokyo.
The top 10 institutions on the list are dominated by the US with four institutions, followed by France with three institutions. They are joined by Japan with two institutions and South Korea with one. The top placed UK institution is the University of Oxford in 21st place.
The US dominates the top 100 with 38 institutions in the top 100, followed by China boasting 15 institutions.
CEOs who graduated from Harvard University run companies with a combined total revenue in excess of US $1 500 billion. Of the 499 CEOs in the Fortune Global 500, 113 of them have been awarded with an MBA, and 53 have been awarded a doctorate.
Of the 18 countries represented by the institutions in the world top 100 list, 40 comes from North America, 29 from Asia, 26 from Europe, two from South America, two from Africa and one from Oceania.
The national Department of Communications (DoC) is on the mend and is tackling its challenges head-on said Yunus Carrim, the newly appointed Minister of the DoC.
Carrim, who replaced Dina Pule as the Minister following a cabinet reshuffle in July, said that the department is embarking on a skills recruitment drive as this is a key impediment in the department’s ability to contribute more effectively to the country’s economic growth, development and job-creation goals.
In the past the department has missed important deadlines which affected its mandate and the reasons for this were many and complex, said Carrim.
Carrim listed “undue interference in the department’s work, lack of skills and challenged politicians” as three factors that have resulted in the delay of important national projects which could improve the quality of communication. South Africa’s migration to digital broadcasting is behind schedule and the initial date for the move was November 2011.
The Department has identified ten areas of priority before the 2014 election. Reducing the cost to communicate, digital migration roll-out and greater focus on the rural and other under-serviced areas are marked as priority areas in the department’s draft strategy and programme for the period until the elections.
Click to listen to the discussion where stakeholders raised concerns such as ICASA’s capacity, South Africa’s stunted ICT sector and the funding of telecoms infrastructure without punishing the consumer.
The Minister was speaking at an open dialogue meeting hosted by the Centre for Public Enterprises at Wits. The dialogue served to create a platform for industry stakeholders to raise key questions for the Minister’s attention and consideration.
The open dialogue forms part of the Ministry roadshow to encourage input which will improve the communications industry and contribute to economic growth. Contributions should be directed to siphokazis@doc.gov.za or xolisa@doc.gov.za
Wits Scientist Wins Ig Nobel Prize
- By Wits University
Dung beetles sporting custom made caps and boots entered the annals of the Ig Nobel Prize when South Africa’s second ever winner was announced during the 23rd First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony at Harvard University on Thursday, 12 September 2013.
Professor Marcus Byrne from Wits University and his colleagues from Lund University in Sweden were awarded Ig Nobel Prizes in Astronomy and Biology for conducting research that first makes you laugh, and then makes you think.
Byrne and the team designed caps and boots for dung beetles and dressed the beetles in their new apparel to prove firstly that dung beetles use the Milky Way to orientate (read more), and secondly that dung beetles climb on top of their dung balls to cool their bodies as they roll the ball away from competitors at the dung pile (read more).
According to Byrne and team members Marie Dacke, Eric Warrant, Emily Baird and Clarke Scholtz: “We are very chuffed to win the Ig Nobel! Believe it or not, it is a significant recognition of one's work, especially in reaching the wider general public. The IgNobel motto is that the prize is won for science that ‘first makes you laugh’ (i.e. dung beetles wearing hats and watching stars) ‘and then makes you think’. So the poking fun at science is good. The whole enterprise is one of questioning something – even the results – and enjoying it.
“All four of us are really honoured by the award and hope it spreads the word among the general public that science is not dry and boring but actually good fun! We think the Ig Nobel also highlights that basic curiosity-driven research leads to amazing insights into how our remarkable world works.”
South Africa has had one previous winner. In 1999 Charl Fourie and Michelle Wong were awarded the Ig Nobel Prize in Peace for inventing a burglar alarm for cars consisting of a detection circuit and a flamethrower.
During the 2013 ceremony, 10 Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded to winners from 18 nations on five continents. Genuine Nobel laureates physically handed out the prizes to the winners. They included Dudley Herschbach (chemistry, 1986), Eric Maskin (economics, 2007), Roy Glauber (physics, 2005) and Frank Wilczek (physics, 2004) presented the prizes to the winners.
One of these Nobel laureates was also the prize in the Win-a-Date-with-a-Nobel-Laureate Contest.
The ceremony featured the world premiere of The Blonsky Device, a mini-opera in four acts. The story is inspired by the life and work of George and Charlotte Blonsky, the married couple who were granted a patent in 1965 for an “Apparatus for Facilitating the Birth of a Child by Centrifugal Force”. The about-to-be-mother is strapped onto a circular table, and the table is then rotated at high speed. The Blonskys were posthumously awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in 1999.
The evening also included a special one-minute lecture titled: “The Biomechanical Forces Involved in Human Childbirth” by Daniel Lieberman, Harvard Professor of Biological Sciences. In 2009 Lieberman and two colleagues were awarded an Ig Nobel Prize for physics, for explaining why pregnant women don’t tip over.
About the Ig Nobel Prizes:
Organised by the science humour magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) in cooperation with several Harvard student groups, the Ig Nobel Prizes honour achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honour the imaginative – and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology. More information: http://www.improbable.com/ig/
Left to right: Dr Emily Baird, Professor Eric Warrant and Dr Marie Dacke (from Lund University) with Professor Marcus Byrne.
Top minds at Golden Key Symposium
- By Wits University
Dr Ridwan Mia, Wits alumnus who spearheaded the skin graft operation for burn victim Pippie Kruger, will be a guest speaker at the annual Golden Key Thinkers Symposium at Wits University.
Other speakers include: Penny Heyns, Ahmed Kathrada, Professor Bonita Meyersfeld, Judge Kathree-Sitloane, and award winning photographers Graeme Williams, Jodi Bieber and Peter Morey. They will use their professional experience to explore the theme Thought revolution: our legacy.
This gathering of pioneers and active citizens is open to all.
Event Details:
Date: 18 September 2013
Time: 14:30 – 20:00
Venue: Wits Great Hall, Braamfontein East Campus
For programme details, please here and here for detailed speaker profiles.
The symposium is organised by the Wits branch of the Golden Key Society, an international honour society which attracts high-achieving individuals. The Society has branches in universities in Australia, Canada, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, South Africa, the Bahamas and the United States.
Symposium coordinator and President of the Wits Golden Key, Sharon Charmz, explains this year’s theme using words from Steve Jobs. “Thought Revolution: Our Legacy is a celebration of the misfits, the round pegs in the square holes who push the human race forward.
“We hope to inspire youth at the symposium to be crazy enough to dare change the world with revolutionary ideas in the same way as Jobs and our speakers.”
The symposium seeks to create an environment that fosters thought and provides a platform for individuals from different sectors and different interest groups in society to think about, and critically debate topical issues. With a focus on youth and university students, the symposium also aims to promote values of good citizenship; an ethos of constant and continuous thought and action; awareness and sensitivity to humankind.
Wits Heritage Day Celebrations
- By Wits University
International students at Wits University will celebrate their culture during a week of events around Heritage Day.
International clubs and societies have been invited to display their culture and engage in a variety of artistic performances from 24 to 27 September 2013.
The main event will take place on 25 September 2013 when the exhibitions and embassy stalls on the Concourse in Senate House will be officially opened.
Voice of Wits will be broadcasting live from the venue and the SRC will host a café where students will be invited to express their comments on Wits.
The initiative aims to bring together local and international students and provide a platform to expose the larger Wits community to the rich cultural heritage that surrounds us.
Marikana has focussed global attention on the rise of the South African platinum mining industry. But what is the story behind its remarkable expansion? What changes has this set in motion?
These questions will be discussed by leading researchers in a two-day international colloquium hosted by the Society, Work and Development Institute (SWOP) at Wits University in conjunction with the Review of African Political Economy.
Details:
Date: 11 and 12 September 2013
Time: 09:15-17:15
Venue: Graduate Seminar Room, South West Engineering Building, Braamfontein Campus East
Topics to be discussed include: the political economy of platinum; the ANC and the new resource nationalism; the mine labour regime and migrant labour system; the great strike wave, NUM’s crisis and new forms of worker organisation; changing patterns of informal settlements and rural transformation; and Marikana and the post-apartheid order.
Ben Fine (Professor of Economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London), Peter Alexander (University of Johannesburg); Crispen Chinguno (SWOP), Kally Forrest (former trade unionist and editor of the South African Labour Bulletin), Karl von Holdt (SWOP Director and labour specialist) and Ray Bush (Professor of African Studies and Development Politics at the University of Leeds) are among some of the researchers to present at the conference. Click for speaker profiles and for programme details.
The first screening of the new Uhuru documentary Miners Shot Down takes place at 18:00 on 11 September 2013 at the conference venue. This will be followed by a panel discussion with Rehad Desai (producer), Jim Nichol (Lawyer at the Marikana Commission of Inquiry) and a featured mineworker. The documentary looks at South Africa’s transition to democracy through the lens of the August 2012 Marikana massacre and the impact of mining on marginalised communities.
The Wits Student Development and Leadership Unit and the Wits branch of the Youth Alliance for Leadership and Development in Africa invite you to a panel discussion on Africa, A Dream Deferred?
The panel will consist of the Chief Executive Officer of Frontier Advisory, a leading research, strategy and advisory firm that specialises in emerging markets Dr Martyn Davies, Head of the One Million African Leaders Connect at the NEPAD Business Foundation Agnes Sibanda and Tshepo Mokoka, Economist in the School of Economic and Business Sciences at Wits.
The panel discussion takes place on Tuesday, 17 September 2013 from 15:00 in Room 114, FNB Building, Braamfontein Campus West.
Africa celebrates its 50th year of African Unity this year and there has been much fanfare written about Africa as the new global destination for investor funds after China. In fact, two successive reports published by McKinsey & Co. comment on the rise of the African middle class which is fuelling an increase in consumer spending driving growth even higher in some countries, in fact consumer spending is expected to grow by $400 billion by 2020 to about $1.4 trillion.
However, Africa still suffers from the highest rates of poverty and unemployment in the world amongst other social ills. Africa, are we a dream deferred?
Dr Martyn Davies is ranked the number one analyst in South Africa in the “Other African Economies & Markets” category by the Financial Mail. He is the Chief Executive Officer of Frontier Advisory, a leading research, strategy and advisory firm that specialises in emerging markets. Davies was selected in 2010 as a Young Global Leader, an honour bestowed by the World Economic Forum each year to recognise the most distinguished young leaders nominated below the age of 40 from around the world. He is a participant at the World Economic Forum (WEF) as a Chair, advisor and Industry Expert.
He is a recipient of a Dangote Fellowship awarded by the WEF for young Africans selected each year for their outstanding leadership, professional accomplishments and commitment to society. Davies serves as an advisor to the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) and is a Senior Fellow at the MasterCard Institute.
Davies holds a BA degree in Law, an Honours Degree in International Relations, a Master’s Degree in International Relations, a Diploma in Asian Studies and a PhD in International Relations. He also has a certificate from Harvard Business School and the Gordon Institute of Business Science for its “Making Markets Work” course. In 2010, Destiny Man magazine named Davies in its “Power 40” of leading South African businessmen under the age of 40.
Agnes Sibanda
Agnes Sibanda joined the NEPAD Business Foundation (NBF) in January 2013 to Head the One Million African Leaders Connect project. Prior to taking up her post at the NBF, she worked for the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation as Director: Alumni. Her role at the NBF allows her to invest time into two of her passions: people and ideas. These passions often result in her third passion, exciting growth in and start-up of new businesses and / or social change organisations and in the development of Africa’s leaders. She has 14 years of work experience in a variety of industries including IT, audit, consulting and non-profit. Sibanda holds a Bachelor of Commerce and is currently studying towards an MPhil (Futures Studies).
Tshepo Mokoka
Tshepo Mokoka is an Economist in the School of Economic and Business Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand. Passionate about education and society around him Mokoka has endeavoured to ensure all people have a basic understanding of economics with which to make informed decisions. To this end, he participates in workshops, seminars and is also a presenter on Khaya FM. He is currently in the process of completing his PhD in Economics.
"We are still dogged by vast inequality"
- By Vivienne Rowland
Thirty-six years after his death, Steve Biko still manages to elicit spirited conversation and debate about equality, freedom of expression and human rights.
It was no different when Professor Adam Habib, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of Wits University, delivered the 2013 Steve Biko Bioethics lecture, hosted by the Steve Biko Centre for Bioethics at Wits.
The lecture, which took place on the 36th anniversary of Biko’s torture death at the hands of the then Apartheid security forces, was attended by a full-house in the Adler Museum of Medicine at the Wits Medical School on 12 September 2013.
Nkosinathi Biko, eldest son of Biko and CEO of the Steve Biko Foundation, also attended and made the opening remarks prior to Habib’s poignant lecture.
“There was a time when this was a sad day, and that time came and went. Later we started commemorating and now we are celebrating my father’s death. The murder at the hands of those in room 619 on 12 September 1977 was to eliminate Steve Biko from the books of history in South Africa. They certainly failed. He is alive and has survived his killers and will always be respected by this nation,” said Biko.
Habib’s lecture, entitled Health, Ethics and Human Development in an Unequal World, revolved around inequalities in the South African society and the limitations we have on creating a more equal society.
“Steve Biko is an icon who often gravitated towards fighting for a free country, inclusive society and one that is free of oppression. He ultimately gave his life for that ideal,” said Habib.
He said that Biko was one of the leaders who remained untainted by the trappings of power and consuming corruption, which marks so many of the political leaders of today.
“South Africa is approaching a moment of reckoning, but we cannot say that we are now worse off than we were in the Apartheid era, which was an atrocity against humanity. South Africa has had fundamental changes in the 20 years since the advent of democracy, but we should not take our free society and rights for granted,” said Habib.
He also made broad reference to his latest book, South Africa’s Suspended Revolution: Hopes and Prospects, which was published last month, and said the book is an analysis of the last 20 years in the country. “The book asks: ‘how did we get to where we are, and how do we get out?’” said Habib.
A student and researcher friendly Home Affairs
- By Buhle Zuma
Immigration offers many opportunities for South Africa to boost its skills base and the Department of Home Affairs is working to ease the frustrations experienced by foreign professionals and students in the country.
Home Affairs Minister, Naledi Pandor, says the Department is developing ”immigration policies that are more relevant to the issues confronting us today” which will encourage investments into South Africa, develop links with the continent and build a cohesive understanding of “Africanness”.
Pandor says some of these policy interventions relate to “SADC economic migrants (who) should be acknowledged through developing permits that will allow temporary work visas to be issued to economic migrants who currently use the asylum seeking route as the only means of acquiring legal status.”
“We want to strengthen measures to attract scarce skills professionals by creating work visas for graduates who are foreign students in South Africa.We plan to pay greater attention to skilled asylum seekers by developing a skills register and assisting refugees to find work opportunities in South Africa. South Africa is set to become a popular destination for researchers in a number of disciplines. We want to join other research friendly countries by easing access for researchers into South Africa.”
The Department’s plans should come as good news to South African universities who have previously called on government to introduce policies and systems that will promote intellectual interaction and support the internationalisation of higher education in the country and continent.
A report by the International Education Association of South Africa (IESA) titled: International Students: Trends in South Africa says the number of international students has grown dramatically from 12 600 in 1994 to more than 64 784 in 2010. About a quarter of these are postgraduates students.
Pandor was speaking at the Wits Business School where she delivered a speech titled: Managing Transitions before engaging with guests.
Responded to Pandor, Professor Loren Landau, Director of African Centre for Migration and Society at Wits University applauded the steps taken by the ministry to deal with immigration before raising important questions about the resurgence of xenophobic attacks in the townships which he said require more than a moral appeal (to South Africans) and an understanding that the attacks are ”deeply embedded in the politics and the economy of the township”.
Turning attention to the lack of progress in immigration policy, Landua said the country needed to think carefully about “what we want immigration to do in the country”.
“We want it to address our scarce skills shortage and address the long term patterns of inequality but these are not new and government has been saying this for the past 10 to 15 years.”
Immigration policy is moving slowly in addressing these needs or meeting the goals and targets set by government, he said.
The policy review has been ongoing for several years and has yet to be released to anyone outside the department, Landau.
Corporate South Africa
Typically questions emerged on unskilled foreigners replacing South Africans, particularly in the hospitality industry and the conduct of private immigration officials, whom guests said are charging exorbitant rates for basic services. The challenge presented to forensic pathologists by unregistered migrants and a more technology savy department held the audience captive.
Click for Pandor’s speech.
To listen to remarks by Professor Landau, click .
To listen to Pandor's responds to Landau, click .
Is corporate South Africa fuelling xenophobia?
Somalian businessman and student at the Wits Business School says South Africa can learn from the anthro-entrepreneurship culture of his compatriots. Click to listen.
Witsies outnumber the rest
- By Buhle Zuma
The semi-finalists of the Budget Speech Competition have been announced and Wits has the highest number of candidates making it to the final rounds of the competition.
The coordinators of the Nedbank and Old Mutual Budget Speech Competition have released the names of the country’s most promising up-and-coming economists competing in two separate categories of the challenge. In the undergraduate category Wits has five students and six in the postgraduate category. Wits leads with eleven candidates and is followed by the Universiies of Cape Town, Johannesburg and the North-West who each have a total of six candidates.
The competition established in 1972 is open to undergraduate and postgraduate students registered for an economics course at any recognised South African institution for higher learning (including the Military Academy). It is one of the few competitions that allow students to compete head to head with their peers from other universities and is an opportunity for talented young economic minds to be recognised and celebrated by the business community and national government.
Undergraduates had to pen a well researched 2000 word essay on the courses of youth unemployment and offer solutions to the national crisis; postgraduate students had to craft a 3500 word essay detailing what the government can do to deal with the rapidly rising electricity prices and electricity shortages. Essays are judged on academic merit and the final category winners are announced in February by the Minister of Finance.
The winning essay in the undergraduate category stands to win R30 000 and R150 000 is up for grabs in the postgraduate category.
“We are delighted that the University has the most number of semi- finalists which serves as a testament of the quality of our teaching and learning experience,” says Judy Backhouse, Head of the School of Economic and Business Sciences.
In the undergraduate category Wits is represented by Michael Levin, Kevin Mapenzauswa, Kgaogelo Raphasha, Christina Theodoropoulos and Lucky Tozana. Postgraduates are Yashvir Algu, Wayde Flowerday, Jesal Kika, Nadia Kruger, Mashokane Mahlo and Terry van Staden. In 2012 van Staden secured third position in the undergraduate category.
Wits students have consistently performed well in the competition.
Last year, three Wits students collectively pocketed R95 000 in the competition for their essays. In the past four years, Witsies have twice won the challenge and many others have featured as finalists. Shaheen Seedat took the postgraduate title in 2010 and Tshepo Machele claimed the undergraduate prize in 2008.
Click here to visit the official website of the Nedbank Old Mutual Budget Speech Competition.
Facilitating dreams, playing a leading role in Witsies’ futures
- By Buhle Zuma
Jeannette Phiri, who has been appointed as the Head of the Student Enrolment Centre (SENC), says the role of the SENC is more than distributing and capturing application forms from prospective students.
“We facilitate dreams and play an integral role in the life of an applicant whose goal is to earn a place at Wits in order to pursue their dream career,” says Phiri.
As the first point of call for applicants, the service rendered by the SENC leaves a lasting impression on aspirant Witsies and has to reflect the world class status of the University.
Phiri is just the person for this task and has spent 30 years in the University being involved in various aspects of student life.
She began her career at Wits in 1982 as a filing clerk working with Phyllis Hyde, the then Registrar of the Faculty of Health Sciences. At the time the Faculty was still based in Hillbrow and was known as the Faculty of Medicine under the Deanship of the late Professor Philip Tobias.
The Faculty provided ample professional growth which saw her promoted to the position of a receptionist, then again as an administrative officer. The early days of her career provided fertile training ground for her later roles as she climbed through the administration ranks of the University. She has held a position as a Faculty Officer and was the head of the Central Admissions Office which evolved into SENC in 2002, providing additional services. From 2002 to June 2013 she served as the deputy head of the Centre before being appointed as the Head in July.
Applications directed to the Centre have grown from about 19 000 applications in 2006 to more than 30 000 annually in recent years.
The number of applicants is not the only thing that has changed over the years but the type of applicants has changed too.
“Today’s applicants are much more in tune with technology and are very aware of themselves,” laughs Phiri.
“Accessibility and connectivity have changed the way we work. We have to be knowledgeable about our areas of work because students are on the phone, emailing and using technology to do research. Unlike the ones who needed to post a letter or get onto a train to find information, they want answers now and your knowledge is constantly tested,” she says of the high expectations and pressure.
However this does not faze Phiri whose work ethic has twice won her the R.W. Charlton Award for Service Excellence at Wits in 2007 and 2010.
No doubt her personal attributes also contribute towards the commitment displayed in her work.
As a young girl Phiri dreamed of being a social worker but her plans were thwarted when she did not qualify for admission.
“I wanted to become a social worker but now find helping and working with students very satisfying.”
“You need to have compassion, be a good listener and also be able to deal with an outpour of emotions when communicating bad news. Not all applicants are accepted and this can be devastating news for parents and young fragile minds whose dream is to be a Witsie.”
The SENC deals with all enquiries relating to applying to study at Wits. This includes accommodation, financial aid, sport and other bursaries; and most importantly offering career education to high school learners who are sometimes confused about which career path to pursue. The Centre is also responsible for the registration of first year students, a process which requires good planning and management for the uninitiated new comers into university processes.
All this is performed by a staff compliment of 23 which consists of data administrators, admissions consultants, an information systems manager and public relations officers.
The Internet: past, present and future
- By Wits University
Fridges which compile lists of possible dinner options while you’re at work; self-driving vehicles; and interplanetary Internet were the stuff of Vint Cerf’s lecture to a packed audience at Wits University on Friday, 6 September 2013.
Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist delivered the 62nd Bernard Price Memorial Lecture titled: The Internet: past, present and future.
As the co-designer of the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet, Cert is widely known as one of the "Fathers of the Internet". He said that the Internet had deliberately been developed with a view to removing all barriers to people implementing it. Today, security is a big issue which will have to be addressed.
At the same time, he cautioned against treating every breach of security as a criminal act. His suggestion is for the establishment of a cyber fire department. When there has been a breach of security, it would be the job of the cyber fire department to put out the cyber fire and investigate the root cause of the fire. If the fire department suspects arson, only then is the police department called.
In Africa the Internet also faces challenges like infrastructure, regulatory models, sustainable operation, resilience and reliability, staffing, and user awareness. Cerf encouraged Africans to not think that because penetration is low, the Internet can’t be used to contribute to GDP.
“Emerging companies could provide products and services for countries where there is Internet penetration. And while they’re doing that, let’s build up capability, infrastructure, etc.”
He said countries should be providing free wifi and getting their revenue from taxing increased business.
Cerf also alluded to some of the lighter sides of the evolution of the Internet worldwide. He suggested putting RFID chips on products in fridges so that your fridge will be able to tell what’s inside your fridge and surf the Internet for possible recipes while you’re at work. According to Cerf, when you get home, you could have a list of things you could have for dinner.
The Japanese have already linked bathroom scales to fridges. Depending on your weight, your fridge might suggest diet recipes.
Self-driving vehicles are also in the pipelines. Google’s self-driving vehicles have done 500 000 miles in San Francisco without any human intervention.
Professor Barry Dwolatzky, Director of the Joburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE) at Wits University, has been selected as a top 10 candidate for the IT Personality of the Year Award.
Now in its 35th year, the award is presented by the IITPSA (Institute of Information Technology Professionals South Africa, formerly Computer Society South Africa) in association with IT Web, the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) and Gartner Africa.
The award recognises and celebrates the outstanding talent, leadership, vision and commitment of individuals and organisations within the ICT industry. The JCSE is a three-way partnership between government, academia and industry and Dwolatzky, a Wits qualified Electrical Engineer, was a major player in setting it up.
“I am honored and delighted to be recognised by the IITPSA. It is a wonderful opportunity to feature the work being done within the local software development industry and to create awareness of the many exciting initiatives the JCSE champions at Wits,” says Dwolatzky.
Dwolatzky’s passion is promoting the growth and development of the South African software industry. An example is his work on TechInBraam, an ambitious ICT cluster development programme that is aimed at establishing a Digital Technology Cluster in Braamfontein, Johannesburg.
Another example is the launch of the Tshimologong Precinct, a digital technology skills and innovation hub which forms part of the TechINBraam initiative. Under Dwolatzky’s guidance, what was once a dilapidated inner-city area will become a place of thriving creativity.
He has also created a number of strategic initiatives at Wits, including a new degree option in Information Engineering within Electrical Engineering and a course-based Masters programme in Software Engineering.
He has also established a partnership with the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University in the US, and has over the past eight years worked with the SEI and the Department of Trade and Industry to promote best software engineering practices in South Africa.
Vote for Dwolatzky by clicking here (voting ends 25 September 2013).
WJP is the best team
- By Wits University
The Wits Justice Project has won the Vice Chancellor’s Academic Citizenship team award for 2013. This prestigious citation is awarded on the basis of a project demonstrating that it addresses a community need in an innovative and significant way. Read more
Profile: Professor Anna Kramvis
- By Wits University
Professor Anna Kramvis from the School of Clinical Medicine in the Wits Faculty of Health Sciences delivers an inaugural lecture, entitled Hepatitis B Virus: A Millionth of the Human Genome, on Thursday, 3 October 2013.
A Wits alumnus, Kramvis was appointed lecturer in the Department of Microbiology after obtaining her Doctorate at Wits.
In 1994 she was appointed as Senior Research Officer in the Molecular Hepatology Research Unit (MHRU), Department of Medicine, a position she has held on a part-time basis until 2003 before converting to full-time. In 2005, she was promoted to Reader/Associate Professor. In 2008, she established the Hepatitis Virus Diversity Research Programme (HVDRP), which she directs. The HVDRP provides a platform for training of research scientists in molecular virology. Since 2007 she has co-organised two international symposia, one in Belgium and one in South Africa. She oversaw the extensive renovation and refurbishment of the laboratories in Area 551 of the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital. These renovations were funded by the South African Medical Research Council and named the Wits/MRC Laboratory for Hepatitis Virus Diversity Research.
In 2012, Kramvis was promoted to Research Professor, a promotion that is special and rare and which confers on the recipient one of the highest academic distinctions in the University. The National Research Foundation of South Africa has rated her as an internationally recognised scientist. She is an honorary research associate of the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory in Melbourne, Australia.
Her primary research interest is the molecular virology of the hepatitis B virus, with particular focus on uniquely African strains of the virus. This virus is estimated to infect two billion humans and it is second only to cigarette smoking as an agent causing human cancer. Globally over 240 million individuals are chronically infected with the virus and a large number of these will develop liver cancer. Approximately 1% of the carriers of the world reside in South Africa. No infectious diseases research in Africa can neglect the AIDS pandemic scourging our continent, so, in addition to HBV-mono-infection, her team is currently researching HBV/HIV co-infection and developing bio-informatic tools to facilitate the study of these infections.
This research is funded by grants raised from the National Research Foundation, the Medical Research Council, the Poliomyelitis Research Foundation, the Cancer Association of South Africa, the DFG, German Research Foundation, the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science; and the Belgian Programme for Bilateral (international) scientific and technological cooperation.
She has successfully supervised 30 postgraduate students and her current team consists of three postdoctoral fellows, one PhD and two Masters students. She has published more than 60 articles in international journals and is involved in collaborative studies with researchers in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, China, Germany, Greece, India, Japan, Kenya, South Africa, Sudan, Sweden, United States of America, and Zimbabwe. She travels extensively, presenting lectures in various international institutions and meetings. She is a member of a number of university, national and international committees and acts as a reviewer for numerous journals and is also on editorial boards of PloSONE and BMC Infectious Diseases.
Besides work, she enjoys interacting with people, travelling, exploring new places and discovering different cultures. She reads and writes extensively, both in English and Greek. She is married to Costa and has a daughter, Irini and a son, Kimon.
360 million year old fossilised scorpion
- By Wits University
A postdoctoral fellow from Wits University has discovered the oldest known land-living animal from Gondwana in a remote part of the Eastern Cape. Dr Robert Gess, from the Evolutionary Studies Institute at Wits, discovered the 360 million year old fossilised scorpion from rocks of the Devonian Witteberg Group near Grahamstown. This unique specimen, which is a new species, has been called Gondwanascorpio emzantsiensis.
His discovery has been published in the peer reviewed journal African Invertebrate.
Explaining his discovery, Gess said that early life was confined to the sea and the process of terrestrialisation - the movement of life onto land - began during the Silurian Period roughly 420 million years ago. The first wave of life to move out from water onto land consisted of plants, which gradually increased in size and complexity throughout the Devonian Period.
This initial colonisation of land was closely followed by plant and debris-eating invertebrate animals such as primitive insects and millipedes. By the end of the Silurian period about 416 million years ago, predatory invertebrates such as scorpions and spiders were feeding on the earlier colonists of land.
By the Carboniferous period (360 million years ago), early vertebrates - our four-legged ancestors -had in turn left the water and were feeding on the invertebrates. Although we knew that Laurasia -the single northern landmass then comprising what is today North America and Asia - was inhabited by diverse invertebrates by the Late Silurian and during the Devonian, this supercontinent was at the time separated from the southerly positioned Gondwana by a deep ocean.
Evidence on the earliest colonisation of land animals has up till now come only from the northern hemisphere continent of Laurasia, and there has been no evidence that Gondwana was inhabited by land living invertebrate animals at that time,” explained Gess.
For the first time we know for certain that not just scorpions, but whatever they were preying on were already present in the Devonian. We now know that by the end the Devonian period Gondwana also, like Laurasia, had a complex terrestrial ecosystem, comprising invertebrates and plants which had all the elements to sustain terrestrial vertebrate life that emerged around this time or slightly later,” said Gess.
An NRF B1 rated researcher who has been passionate about science since childhood has joined the School of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering at Wits University, where he holds the NRF/DST Chair in Sustainable Process Engineering, bringing his intention to continue furthering a niche field which has important relevance to key national development priorities.
Professor Thokozani Majozi admits that the broad area of his research – process integration – is not new. In fact he did his PhD at the Centre for Process Integration at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology where Pinch Technology (a proven, systematic methodology for saving energy) was first developed in the early 1980s.
But as the field of process integration has evolved, it has become clear that there are many critical areas which have not yet been covered. One of these is batch chemical process integration.
Batch operations are different to continuous operations in that they are time dependent. Cooking is a good example of a batch operation and if you have cooked, you have operated a batch reactor. The pots in your kitchen are batch reactors and every time you follow a recipe, there’s an element of time which is important to achieving the final product.
Continuous operations, by contrast, have the capacity to achieve steady-state, thereby rendering the time dimension irrelevant. If one takes a snapshot of a continuous unit operation at steady-state at two different points in time, one will see exactly the same thing. Consequently, these operations can be frozen in time, which entails many computational benefits in process integration.
Process integration, in the inception of the discipline, was meant for continuous operations. ‘It made sense at the time because continuous operations use a lot of energy and water whilst generating a lot of emissions. Over the years the discipline has evolved to embrace batch operations, which are mostly used in the manufacture of low volume, high value added products. These processes tend to be more complex and we don’t fully understand them yet,’ says Majozi.
Majozi’s research group is looking at three aspects of batch chemical process integration – sustainable optimisation, sustainable design and sustainable synthesis.
His book on batch chemical process integration was published by Springer in 2010, making it one of the first books on the topic. ‘When people start to publish books on a topic, it is an indication that they are only just starting to understand it. We are still in the very early stages. We have to work very hard,’ he says.
In the last five years, Majozi’s group has diversified a bit. In addition to batch operations, they are now looking at one specific aspect of continuous operations called utilities de-bottlenecking.
‘The hierarchy of process design begins with the reactor which is at the heart of the process. Then you think about separation because there is no reactor that has 100% conversion. After that you can think about the heat exchanger network – some operations could generate heat while others could absorb heat – and we think about how we could match the two to reduce the dependence on external utilities,’ says Majozi.
‘After you’ve exhausted that you think about external utilities like steam and cooling water. By utilities de-bottlenecking, we mean we want to design operations that are not as dependent on utilities. In South Africa, if you use more steam, you generate more carbon dioxide because we get most of our steam from coal.’
Majozi’s research is directly linked to broader national goals. ‘South Africa is going through a very difficult time in terms of energy. Although you hear Eskom saying – and I strongly believe in it – that individuals should switch off their lights, switch off their computers, truly speaking, the major users of energy are in the industrial sector. We should then find systematic ways to help industry use energy – and water – effectively.’
‘There has been strong interest from industry. We’ve already worked with Sappi, AECI, Johnson & Johnson and Sasol, and the pool of partners is increasing as we go along.’
Majozi started his professional career at Unilever in 1994. In 1996 he joined Dow AgroSciences and in 2002 he joined Sasol Technology as Technology Leader for Optimisation and Integration. He was appointed as an associate professor at the University of Pretoria in 2004 and promoted to a full professor at the end of 2008.
From 2005 to 2009, Majozi also held an associate professorship in computer science at the University of Pannonia in Hungary, spending four months of every year in Hungary.
He says this was one of the most beautiful experiences of his life. ‘It made me grow. I saw how different students could be. I found Hungarian students to be very proactive. If you’re a professor there, you know that you must be on top of your game at all times.’
As a result of his experience overseas, Majozi has made it a requirement for all his research students to spend time abroad. ‘None of my students finishes a degree without having spent some time overseas. There is nothing that untangles their minds like seeing what other people are doing. The biggest mistake we tend to make is that we confine them to one place and they begin to think that life begins here and ends here, which is very dangerous. It’s good for them to see talent elsewhere because when they come back, you can see the energy in them.’
He is committed to continuing teaching. ‘While my assignment at Wits – and my passion – is research, there is a proven case that research without teaching is incomplete, so I’ve requested some teaching duties. Teaching allows me to interact with students first hand and to identify best talent.’
Majozi is author and co-author of more than 100 scientific publications. He is a member of various scientific committees and organisations including the European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering, the international Process Systems Engineering conference, and the Academy of Sciences of South Africa. He is a Fellow for the CSIR and the Academy of Engineering of SA.
He has received numerous awards for his research including the Zdenek Burianec Memorial Award (Italy, 2005), the National Science and Technology Forum Award for Distinguished researcher in the last five to 10 years (2006), the NRF President’s Award (P-rating, 2007), the NRF President’s Award (Transformation of the Scientific Cohort, 2008) and the University of Pretoria Leading Minds Award (2008).
In 2009, he was awarded the prestigious S2A3 British Association Medal (Silver). Recently, he received the South African Institution of Chemical Engineers Bill Neal-May Gold Medal (2010), the NSTF-BHP Billiton Award - Individual through Research and its Outputs (2011) and the AU-TWAS Award in Basic Sciences, Technology and Innovation (2012).
‘As a very young child, my idols were always scientists. I used to read the biographies of great scientists – Einstein, Dirac, Pascal – and this is still one of my favourite pastimes,’ says Majozi.
One of the reasons why he’s been able to translate his childhood dreams into such a successful career is a supportive wife and children. ‘My wife understands that I’m never in one place at any given time. Even my kids have grown accustomed to the fact that I might be in their vicinity but far away in terms of my thinking. I am sometimes there but not there. So they’ve been very supportive in their own way.’
Hayani heads home to Jozi
- By Wits University
After sold-out performances at the National Schools Festival in Grahamstown and rave reviews hot off the Cape Town run, Hayani is back in Johannesburg, bringing with it compelling performances and a heart-rending home-grown story of a generation nearly lost and forgotten, and which is yearning to be heard. The Hayani performance will take place at the Market Theatre from 18 September to 27 October 2013.
Atandwa Kani, who hails from New Brighton, Port Elizabeth, and Nat Ramabulana, who is from Thoyandou, Limpopo, are the talented actors breathing life into the characters. While performing as themselves they also expressively play a number of other vital characters in their lives. They masterfully weave their personal narratives against the tumultuous transitional years in South Africa. Along their journey they recollect their memories, painful, awkward and funny, of childhoods and teen years past, in an honest and enriching tale.
Playing on the theme ‘home is where the heart is’, Hayani, meaning ‘home’ in Venda, is an original piece reflecting on the meaning of ‘home’ in the context of South Africa since its transition. The play explores the stories of two young South African males who both take journeys back home and in so doing they journey towards a better understanding of who they are and what it really means to be a South African.
“After having had an awesome run in Grahamstown and Cape Town, to finally bring Hayani home is sure to be an exhilarating experience,” says Kani. “As Johannesburg is the central point from which both Nat (Ramabulana) and I depart (in the play), being in Johannesburg will give the production a symbolic grounding. We are extremely excited and cannot wait to be ‘home’.”
Wits graduates Kani and Ramabulana give powerful performances against a simple set, with only the sounds of evocative live music composed and played by Matthew Macfarlane, plus a striking backdrop by graffiti artist Mak1One setting the scene. Yet, these talented actors succeed in captivating audiences as they lure them into their magical display of intimate and beautiful story-telling; all at once rich, diverse and vibrant.
“We’ve had people of all races, ages and religions coming up to us after a performance and expressing pure joy and gratitude for the show. It’s heart-warming, it’s inspiring and it’s absolutely phenomenal. I can't wait to bring it back home and share the magic of Hayani with our beloved Jozi,” says Ramabulana.
Hayani is directed by Warren Nebe and presented by the Drama for Life Company Laboratory, a research-based project aimed at developing young professional theatre performers, writers and directors at Wits University.
The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, today dismissed a third academic who was found guilty of sexual harassment. This follows the dismissal of two academics at the end of July. A fourth case is still underway.
“The University has adopted a zero tolerance policy towards sexual harassment. We hope that the swift action taken by the University in these three cases sets a clear example that sexual harassment will not be tolerated in any form on our campuses,” says Prof. Adam Habib, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of Wits University.“We are confident that these dismissals will send a strong signal that the University will act decisively on all matters related to sexual harassment going forward. The University will continue to pursue complaints relating to sexual harassment vigorously and robustly.”
In light of the independent inquiry into sexual harassment released by the University yesterday, the University is forming a Task Team that will chart a way to rid the University of this behaviour. Sexual harassment is a national problem that affects all sectors of society. The University is determined to maintain trust and confidence in the institution’s ability to provide a safe environment for all who visit, live and work at Wits.
Wits Pride roughs it up
- By Vivienne Rowland
Who says being queer cannot be butch?
In a fun, social attempt at Tackling Prejudice, a rugby match is set to take place between Wham!, an amateur mixed-gender social rugby club and the Wits All Stars, a team put together by Wits Sport.
This epic square-off takes place on Wednesday, 11 September 2013 at 19:30 at the Wits Rugby Club, next to Jubilee Hall on the Wits Braamfontein Campus East. Be sure not to miss it!
The organisers of Wits Pride 2013 created this off-beat, fun event to create alternative spaces for queer, which includes gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, to meet in a healthy social environment.
Programme Manager Ella Kotzé is excited at the prospect. “This is a fun way of queering what is traditionally seen as a very heteronormative sport. Not only is Wham! comprised of members who identify as queer in some way, it is also comprised of players of all genders – none of whom are scared to go for the tackle! In a rugby-mad country such as South Africa, is there any better way to bring people together than this?” said Kotzé.
The Wham!-Wits All Stars game takes place amid the annual Wits Pride festivities, kicking off on 7 September 2013, under the theme Being Me, in a week-long dedication to merge the diverse personalities, sexualities and sexual preferences at Wits.
Hosted by the Wits Transformation Office, Activate, the Gay and Lesbian Archive (GALA), Wits Student Affairs and Wits International Office, Wits Pride Week 2013 hopes to involve all people whether they identify as lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, trans, intersexual and asexual (LGBTIA) or not.
This year brings a smorgasbord of entertainment and events geared towards supporting and raising awareness of LGBTIA daily life.
“The theme for Wits Pride 2013 is Being Me, and with all the events in our programme we want to show that it is okay to “be you” – lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, asexual, straight … or none of the above,” says Wits Pride 2013 Programme Manager, Ella Kotzé.
“One of the aims of Wits Pride 2013 is to establish a safe campus community for all our students and staff. This is particularly important in light of the rising number of attacks on queer South Africans, especially lesbians and trans-women.”
The Wits Pride 2013 programme is available on Facebook or for more information contact Tish.White@wits.ac.za on (011) 717-1405.
Following in Da Vinci's footsteps
- By Wits University
A landmark conference aims to establish the field of ‘medical humanities’ in South Africa. The conference, Body Knowledge: Medicine and the Humanities in Conversation, takes place from Monday, 2 September 2013, at the Wits School of Public Health. Lead organiser, Dr Catherine Burns from the Wits Institute of Social and Economic Research, wrote more about the aim of the conference in an article published in the Mail & Guardian on Friday, 30 August 2013. Read more
NRF Special Recognition Award
- By Wits University
The National Research Foundation (NRF) has announced that Neil Coville, Professor Emeritus in the School of Chemistry, has been given a Special Recognition Award for being a Champion of Research Capacity Development at a South African Higher Education Institution.
The award recognises individuals within the research community who contribute to the transformation of South Africa’s community and landscape. The aim is to encourage and promote this activity across the South African research community. The award is dependent on the number of students trained, as well as the quality and impact of research outputs of the students.
Coville’s current research includes:
Fischer-Tropsch catalysis (partly done in the DST/NRF Centre of Excellence in Catalysis www.cchange.ac.za)
Carbon nanotubes and related structures carbon materials (partly done in the Centre of Excellence in Strong Materials www.wits.ac.za/Strongmaterials)
Heterogeneous catalytic systems
The award is sponsored by the NRF and Coville will receive an amount of R300 000 towards any of his research related costs during the funding period which is September 2013 to August 2014.
Earlier in the year, Coville was a finalist in the 2012/13 NSTF-BHP Billiton Awards. He was nominated for being an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to Science, Engineering, Technology and Innovation (SETI) in South Africa over a lifetime.
The citation accompanying the announcement of the NSTF-BHP Billiton Awards finalists read as follows:
Coville has been recognised for his use of catalysts to create new molecules and reaction pathways, and to generate materials that can be used in industry. During his career, he has made and studied many catalyst systems. These studies have resulted in the production of information for the design, characterisation and evaluation of catalysts used in industrial processes, such as making chemicals and fuels (the Sasol Fischer-Tropsch process), for making carbon nano-structured materials used to make sensors, solar cells and memory devices, and for making inorganic catalysts.
Landmark conference brings new insights
- By Wits University
A landmark conference hosted by the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER) this week, 2 – 4 September 2013, took the first step in framing a much-needed conversation between the sciences and the arts. The aim of the conference, titled Body Knowledge: Medicine and Humanities in Conversation, was also to do the groundwork that will lead to establishing the field of ‘Medical Humanities’ in South Africa.
Local and international academics from across the medicine and humanities’ fields set out their views in opinion pieces published in the Mail & Guardian newspaper, of how Medical Humanities can fill the gap between the sciences and the arts.
MEDIA COVERAGE:
PRINT:
AUDIO:
Prof. Murombo, new Director of the Mandela Institute
- By Wits University
Associate Professor Tumai Murombo has been appointed as the new Director of the Mandela Institute in the Wits School of Law.
Murombo joined Wits in June 2006 as a lecturer and has been behind the School’s masters programme in Environmental Law, which attracts a high number of students. He has degrees from the Universities of Zimbabwe, Cape Town and Pace Law School in New York. He previously taught at the University of Zimbabwe, and he is an admitted Legal Practitioner of the High Court Zimbabwe. He is a Beit Fellow, Fulbright Scholar and member of the IUCN Commission on Environmental Law and the Academy on Environmental Law. His international experience includes a brief stint with the Permanent Mission of the Federated States of Micronesia to the United Nations, where he rendered advisory services on sustainable development, human rights, marine resources, energy and the environment at the UN Head Quarters in New York.
He has also served as a Legal Counsel to the Privatization Agency of Zimbabwe. He is a Co-founder and Chairperson of the Board of Trustees of the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association which is championing environmental sustainability, and transparency and accountability in the extractives sector in Zimbabwe. Murombo’s research interests are in environmental law, energy and renewable energy law, international environmental law, sustainable development law, climate change and biodiversity law, corporate and financial services regulation, EU law and environmental justice.
Of his new position Murombo says “the Mandela Institute is strategically positioned to facilitate and coordinate cutting edge research in the Law School, while concurrently offering updates on legal developments to the profession through short courses and certificate courses. My vision aims to augment and make visible the Institute’s research profile in the School and the university, something that has been below expectations. To fulfill Wits’ vision 2022 to become a research intensive university, substantial energies of full time and any visiting staff should be directed towards activities that produce visible research outputs, without compromising the excellence in teaching that our students have come to expect.”
The Mandela Institute conducts policy research and offers teaching in different areas of global or international economic law such as corporate governance, competition law, international trade and investment law, intellectual property law, banking and finance law, law and sustainability, international dispute resolution and global business regulation. This law connects South Africa and the emerging world to the global political economy.
Outside of Wits he conducts policy research for the government and was part of Project 25 that ended in 2011, which looked at possible reforms of South African environmental legislation. A Discussion Paper on this, titled Statutory Law Revision Legislation administered by the Department of Tourism, was published by the Law Reform Commission in October 2011. He also works with national and regional civil organisations involved in human rights, extractives and environmental governance issues. These include the SADC Lawyers Association to the Center for Environmental Rights in Cape Town.
From 2011 to 2012 assisted by Wits PhD student Paradzai Garufu, he also served as the technical specialist on a Ford Foundation-funded Procasur Learning Route project on extractives in Southern Africa. Their background paper published in the 2013 LEAD Journal as Regulating Mining in South Africa and Zimbabwe: Communities, the Environment and Perpetual Exploitation set the context for this South-South international exchange programme.
Murombo is currently winding up his doctorate in law and the regulation of sustainable renewable energy in South Africa at Wits. Married with two children, in his spare time he enjoys running, hiking, nature documentaries and reading history and English literature.
Building resilient thinking
- By Kanina Foss
Next year will see the introduction of a newly created Interdisciplinary Masters Programme in Global Change (by coursework and research report) hosted by the Faculty of Science at Wits University.
The programme aims to develop the kind of interdisciplinary thinking that will be crucial to tackling the formidable, interlinked global challenges of the 21st Century.
Disciplinarity is still the predominant basis upon which research orientations are organised at most universities. Although disciplinarity allows people to specialise and become experts at what they do, it also encourages disciplinary silos, making it difficult for experts to engage with each other and share their knowledge beyond the boundaries of their disciplines.
This is of great concern in light of the increasing recognition that some of the greatest challenges of our time – climate change, population growth, fossil fuel shortage, biodiversity loss, and the need to ensure increasing agricultural yield despite dwindling supplies of land and water – will require a transdisciplinary approach to problem solving.
In response, representatives from a range of Faculties at Wits, with funding from the Open Society Initiative under the African Climate Change Adaptation Initiative (ACCAI), have developed an Interdisciplinary Masters Programme in Global Change.
The objective is to create expertise in the dynamic functioning of interlinked human and natural systems. The programme will encourage the shared understanding of different disciplinary conceptual frames, key problematics and methodologies, the development of integrative research tools and the human capacities they require, and enhanced networks for collaborative learning and problem-solving.
It will be presented full-time or part-time and will incorporate a foundation module grouped with existing electives from specific disciplines (50%) and a research component (50%). For more information on the programme structure, click .
The closing date for applications for 2014 is 31 October 2013, however late applications may be considered. Applications should be submitted online at http://www.wits.ac.za/prospective/postgraduate
For more information contact:
Dr Ute Schwaibold
School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences
Drama for Life is proud to announce that it has been selected to co-host African Scholar and Theatre for Development expert, Professor Christopher Odhiambo. Professor Odhiambo will present a public lecture, teach and undertake further research at Wits with Drama for Life.
“Flogging a dead horse? Applied Theatre practice in the age of advanced media technology” will be the title of his public lecture later this month.
Currently Odhiambo lectures Post-Colonial Literatures and Applied Drama at Stellenbosch University. As a professor of Literature and Theatre at Moi University’s Department of Literature, Theatre and Film Studies he obtained his doctorate in Drama at Stellenbosch investigating the appropriate procedures and methodology of practice in Theatre for Development in Kenya, which was published in Germany in 2008.
Professor Odhiambo has participated in a vast number of educational and intervention theatre workshops and conferences locally and internationally; he was consultant for the International Baccalaureate Organization in 2009 and attended as theatre workshop leader at the IDEA 4th World Congress in Bergen. Still, being aware of the importance of intervention theatre, Odhiambo has designed different training and course modules throughout the years, for example for the African Institute for Capacity and Development in 2006. In 2007, he won a Mellon post doctoral fellowship to pursue research on the intervention and transformative techniques in the drama(s) of Cameroonian playwright Bole Butake at Wits University.
He has shared his outstanding experience in Literature, Creative Writing and intervention Drama, in numerous creative and scientific publications, co-authored books and journals, and also directed and produced a number of plays. He was part of the team of experts that designed and implemented the curriculum of Drama for Life and is member of the Drama for Life research committee.
Professor Odhiambo will be hosted by the Division of Dramatic Arts in collaboration with DfL and the Department of African Theatre from 3 to 30 September as a Wits Distinguished Scholar funded by the International Distinguished Scholar Programme. The scholar program was created with the idea to offer a more open system of scholarly communication worldwide, enhance academic knowledge and intensify high level research networks. For this outstanding scholars and Nobel Laureates in particular areas of strategic focus are being invited to work with selected universities. Professor Odhiambo’s lecture “Flogging a dead horse? Applied Theatre practice in the age of advanced media technology” will take place at the Appolonia Theatre, from 17:30 on Monday, 16 September 2013.
The Wits School of Public Health has been awarded R20 million from the National Department of Health and the SA Medical Research Council for a three-year project on maternal and child health.
The grant is to PRICELESS SA (Priority Cost Effective lessons for Systems Strengthening) which is based in the MRC/Wits Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Research Unit (Agincourt). The mission of this flagship program is to provide economic evidence for priority setting in South Africa to guide investments for better individual and population health. Partners include the Health Systems Trust and the MRC Burden of Disease Unit.
The PRICELESS team is led by Professor Karen Hofman (Director) and Professor Stephen Tollman (Director, MRC/ Wits-Agincourt Unit). The project, entitled PEECHi (Programme on the Economic Evaluation of Child and Maternal Health Interventions), will evaluate the cost-effectiveness of interventions to reduce maternal and child mortality, specifically in the context of Primary Health Care, to improve health resource allocation across a range of investment options.
Professor Laetitia Rispel, Head of the School of Public Health said: “I am really pleased with this significant investment by government and the MRC. The grant recognises the excellent track record and contribution of the Wits School of Public Health to health system strengthening and health policy development”.
PRICELESS SA is also focused on strengthening capacity through Masters and PhDs and developing health economics capabilities amongst managers at district and provincial level. The PRICELESS team engages with policymakers on a regular basis and with the media in order to disseminate information on “Best Buys” in health. For more information on PRICELESS see www.pricelesssa.ac.za
Making waves at 25 years
- By Sara-Lea van Eeden
Twenty-five-year-old Mpho Raborife is making her presence felt and is set on growing her expertise in the field science.
Raborife has beenawarded the L’Oréal-UNESCO Regional Fellowships For Women in Science (FWIS) in sub-Saharan Africa. She along with nine inspiring women scientists from across sub-Saharan Africa have been honoured for their work in the scientific field and awarded fellowships of €15 000, over R190 000, to put towards their PhD research. Fellowship recipients will recognised at an event taking place on 25 September 2013.
The L’Oréal-UNESCO Regional Fellowships For Women in Science in Sub-Saharan Africa is open to all women scientists up to age 40 across sub-Saharan Africa who are working towards their PhD in all fields of science.
Raborife acquired her BSc, BSc Honours and MSc from Wits and is currently studying towards her PhD, which she expects to complete in 2015.
Despite this success, there was a time when she doubted if she would obtain even one degree. Born and bred in Soweto, Raborife is a middle child with two siblings and was raised by a single mother. She started school at four-years-old and finished high school at just 16 with a reputation for being a smart and diligent student.
“Armed with hopes and dreams, I chose my courses and expected smooth sailing in my tertiary studies. But that was not to be. Two of the biggest hurdles I immediately encountered were the language barrier and the learning environment. For the first time in my life I had to converse in English and use computers for virtually everything (I got the shock of my life when one of my lecturers in my first year did not accept a handwritten assignment),” Mpho recalls. “I battled during my first two years at Wits, mostly because I was ill prepared from school, but also because I struggled to connect with my classmates and often felt alone.”
It was then that one of her lecturers suggested that she swap some of her courses around and that, Mpho says, was a life saver. With a new-found confidence, she pursued her studies with vigour, taking up the role of assistant to her lecturer during second year. “It was at that time that I became interested in being a research scientist. It gives me great joy to have other people improving and continuously working on my research, as that brings about a culture of collaboration and knowledge transfer. I have been fortunate enough to have supervisors (who are also my mentors) who have encouraged and supported me continuously in my studies,” she adds.
This has helped Raborife immensely with her PhD research, themed operational formalisation and optimisation in a virtual buying cooperative, which aims to develop computational models to optimise group purchasing power for small enterprises in the virtual market.
Raborife believes winning a FWIS fellowship points to her abilities as a research scientist and the quality of research she is embarking on. “It is a stamp of approval, and will enable me to focus my time and resources on my studies,” she says. “It is a great privilege to receive this award, and I am truly very excited to be part of this community of great women that L’Oreal has been assisting in achieving their dreams and their research goals. Words cannot express my gratitude.”
Bertrand de Laleu, L’Oréal South Africa Managing Director, says the chief objective of the regional fellowship is to increase the participation of women in the field of science. “Women face a number of challenges in this still heavily male-dominated sector. L’Oréal seeks to assist by removing one of these hurdles, which is access to finance. Not only is it anticipated that this will increase their active involvement and contribution to the sciences, but it will also enable women to positively impact social and economic progress in various ways, such as through addressing climate change and public health issues, for example. We believe the women we assist have the potential to make great strides in the field of science; in fact, two of the beneficiaries of our global programme have gone on to win Nobel prizes,” he says.
In her downtime Mpho enjoys reading crime fiction novels and watching movies. For more on the L’Oréal-UNESCO Regional Fellowships For Women in Science (FWIS) in sub-Saharan Africa, .
For more information, contact Buhle.Zuma@wits.ac.za or (011) 717 1018.
