Dr Yvonne Maphosa says the Vice-Chancellor’s Prestigious Achievers Award “is not just a bursary, it’s an acknowledgement of outstanding postgraduate students who have shown academic excellence and an embodiment of the CPUT graduate attributes”.

Here Maphosa talks about how grateful she was to receive it.

The Zimbabwean-born academic obtained her Doctorate in Food Science and Technology during the CPUT Autumn Graduation Series 2022.  Maphosa completed her BTech in Food Technology (Cum Laude) in 2013 and was awarded the Vice-Chancellor’s Medal as the best graduating student in the Faculty of Applied Sciences. She passed her Master’s with distinction and graduated in September 2016.

Reflecting on her career journey, the bubbly author says: “A PhD is not a walk in the park. It requires a lot of emotional and financial support. It’s a very difficult journey that requires commitment and strength. I was blessed with the support of my family, friends and fellow postgraduate students. I had amazing supervisors as well. They held my hand and guided me through. I will forever be indebted to them. The CPUT postgraduate centre was also very helpful and always there to assist.”

The last born of six says a PhD is very expensive and the VC’s Prestigious Achievers Award provided for her tuition, residence and everything she needed to successfully complete her PhD.

The VC’s Prestigious Achievers Award played a huge role in the completion of her studies.

“It also came with tremendous non-financial support from the committee and the VC’s office, all of which I’m deeply grateful for.”

A believer and a go-getter, Maphosa says: “It is [a] motivation to keep on excelling. It inspired me to be the best I could be.”

Growing up in Mambale village, deep in the rural areas of Plumtree, Zimbabwe, working hard came naturally for Maphosa. “Working [hard] was instilled in me from a young age. Waking up early to work the fields before running many kilometres to school, then running to the river to fetch water after school taught me that in life you have to work hard. It also taught me balance and time management.”

Maphosa, who has always been an A student, has won numerous prestigious awards throughout her academic journey in the form of funding, medals, trophies, certificates, and scholarships. “They serve as acknowledgements, reassurances and motivations to accomplish more.”

Besides being an academic, she is an award-winning author. and has published two fiction novel series; The y in yOUR Man is Silent (national bestseller) and Grasping at Straws (award winning).

Maphosa is also involved in charity work. She runs a campaign called Buy-A-Pad with Yvonne. She collects and donates sanitary pads to disadvantaged women and girls. She also has a writing competition, Luvone, aimed at discovering young, unpublished writers. From this competition, the book: Luvone: an anthology of short stories was published. Maphosa is involved in several community projects in Zimbabwe, especially those aimed at empowering the girl child and advocating for women rights.Summiting Mount Kilimanjaro was another highlight of her life.

In her message to prospective students, Maphosa says: “Be yourself. You can only realise your true potential if you are truly yourself. Don’t waste your life mimicking other people or chasing the wind at the expense of your dreams. Focus! Set your goals and work towards them.”

Maphosa also acknowledged the support she received from the Vice-Chancellor and the awards committee.  “Thank you for awarding me the Vice-Chancellor's Prestigious Achievers Awards. I am sincerely humbled and elated that you found me a suitable beneficiary for this honourable award. It made a remarkable difference in my PhD journey and my life as a whole. I’m truly grateful.”

Written by Aphiwe Boyce

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BTech Food Science and Technology students recently showed off their creativity when they pitched food product ideas to their lecturers and food industry specialists. 

This year’s New Product Launch’s theme was “Reduce It”. The four groups of students had to follow the brief of creating a new product of nutritious value which would significantly reduce at least one ingredient, with most concentrating on sugar.

Head of Food Science and Technology Department Prof Jessy van Wyk thanked Industry partner assessors for sacrificing their time in the interest of furthering the students’ training.

The first group to present decided to create a Veggie Chickpea Burger while group two created Nutri-Lite, a Kefir based drinking yogurt with a banana and mango flavour which had no synthetic ingredients.

Group three went back to their roots, drawing on the recipe for Xigugu, a traditional XiTsonga maize-meal snack. They put a modern spin on it by covering it in chocolate and presenting it as Choc-Gugu.

Group four created a cookie they called Cranchie (cranberries + crunchie) which contained no added sugar. While the students did bake a batch for everyone to taste, their product is a frozen cookie dough.

Food Chemistry lecturer Joseline Felix-Minnaar explained the students had between six and eight weeks to do their research and development so had to accelerate some of their processes and as BTech students they concentrated more on the production, food safety and commercialisation processes for this particular project.

Still, she pointed out, the project brought together everything the students had learned over the past year.

“Sometimes these ideas can get picked up by outside business and developed in collaboration with the Technology Transfer Office. So, that’s a reason to bring in the industry but it’s also good for them to present to someone other than the staff,” said Felix-Minnaar.

Written by Theresa Smith
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Students from various faculties presented their research at the recent Postgraduate Conference.

Held for the first time since 2014, the conference saw Masters and Doctoral candidates deliver presentations and present posters on a range of subjects. Topics ranged from the use of electro-spun copper oxide nanofibres for non-enzymatic glucose detection to preliminary findings in a survey of old materials used in heritage buildings in the Mother City. The Food Science and Technology students made quite the impact with five Masters students presenting a mixture of research into the potential uses of Bambara groundnut.

Acting director of the Centre for Postgraduate Studies, Prof Dina Burger, said while organising the event they did not have to cajole anyone into presenting their work, but were met by great enthusiasm.

“The importance of a conference such as this is multi-fold. It gives students an opportunity to communicate their science to a broader constituency and in so doing exposes them to feedback and critical engagement. They need this skills in the workplace and in life,” said Burger.

Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research, Technology, Innovation and Partnership, Prof Marshall Sheldon, pointed out that 6.2% of the university’s current student enrolment are postgraduate students, an increase from 5.5% of 2014.

“We want to increase postgraduate enrolment by the year 2025 and we anticipate the numbers could double. That should increase our research output in terms of articles, conferences attended and papers delivered,” said Sheldon.

She acknowledged that challenges facing current postgraduate students are different to what she experienced as a student but expressed her belief that the university’s support units were up to the task of helping students and their supervisors to achieve their goals.

At the end of the day Merlisa Kemp won best poster for her work on Ultrasound investigation of risk factors for extracranial vascular pathology in patients with Multiple Sclerosis.

Best presentation went to Mohamed Rahman (A performance and energy evaluation of a dye drawn forward osmoses (F) system for the textile industry). Bwandakassy Cedrick Elenga Baningobera’s presentation (Implementation of an IEC 61850 standard-based harmonic blocking scheme for a power transformer) won him second best presentation and Sarah Kasangana Kapinga (CO3O4/TIO2 heterojunction for heterogeneous activation of peroxymonosulfate for treatment of textile wastewater) won third best presentation.

PICTURE CAPTION: GROUP SHOT: Postgraduate students recently presented their current research at a conference held at Saretec.

Written by Theresa Smith
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CPUT Brewing has done it again, winning the Best Lager award in this year’s SAB Intervarsity Beer Brewing Competition.

This year’s competition was organised by Central University of Technology and the University of the Free State together with SAB. The 14 teams competed in four categories – Lager, Belgian Ale, Fruit Beer and a Winter Warmer. A panel from the greater brewing industry, SAB and Warthogs Brewers Association judged the competitors’ entries.

Our brewing team of three Food Science and Technology BTech students created a lager they called Thirst Buster which beat the rest despite brewing not being extensively covered in their curriculum.

“They are true ambassadors for the Department,” said their very proud supervisor Dr Zanephyn Keyser.

“We went with a Munich dunkel and formulated the recipe approximately a month and a half before the competition, which allowed us to condition the beer in the bottle for three weeks.”

“We created a refreshing beer with a deep copper colour with a red tint and a creamy tan head. Our clean fermentation created a well-balanced aroma, rich, elegant, deep malt sweetness, with a floral, hop flavour thanks to our unique Saccharomyces yeast strain.”

The CPUT brewing team made their debut at the Intervarsity Beer Brewing Competition in 2013 and the next year they used rooibos extract as a key ingredient, winning the Ben Lamaletie IBD Intervarsity Beer Brewing Challenge Floating Trophy, the top honour Castle Lager Best Bru Award and the Carling Black Label Champion Lager.

In 2015 they won Best Speciality Brew (Tipsy Inyanga), 2016 the best Label and last year their Apple Adventure won Best Cider.

Keyser hopes their winning streak will attract attention from the local craft brewing industry who might require laboratory analysis or recipe development to further improve their own product.

Written by Theresa Smith
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