The Design Indaba is a highlight on the South African Design calendar, and for CPUT’s Informatics and Design Faculty (FID) it is no different.

Set to take place this weekend at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, the Design Indaba is the premier gathering of creatives in the country, as well as internationally.

CPUT is actively involved in this annual event and to date has won numerous awards for their innovative stands.

This year, the faculty has decided to feature all CPUT courses at the exhibition, as opposed to exclusively featuring information on FID courses.

“In light of the fact that CPUT’s World Design Capital 2014 office is housed within FID, we decided to showcase the entire institution as oppose to just one faculty. Design exists to some degree in all six faculties at CPUT,” says FID’s Munira Allie.

Dedicated to broadening the creative mind, Allie along with Graphic Design lecturer Leigh Desai will also conduct workshop entitled ‘Custom Crazy Clay Flash Drives’ at the Design Indaba’s Youth Workshops.

The Design Indaba will run from 1-3 March and promises to inspire.

By Nurahn Ryklief

Written by CPUT News

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The annual Design-Development and Research (DDR) conference has extended its deadline for submissions until 7 July 2014.

The international conference is organized by CPUT’s Informatics and Design Faculty and is now in its fourth year. Last year it was hosted in Ghana and is a recognised World Design Capital 2014 project. This year it will be hosted at the District 6 Homecoming Centre in Cape Town.

To coincide with the WDC2014 central theme of “Live Design. Transform Life”, this year DDR has a special focus on students and communities. The conference peer-reviewed tracks focus on aspects such as social innovation, environments, empowerment, sustainability and climate futures, amongst others. DDR also aims to introduce students to the world of conferencing, presenting posters and papers and attending workshops.

Participants are encouraged to question design as a catalyst for social change and the target audience is designers, researchers, engineers, scientists, managers, media specialists, architects and others.

Conference organiser Dr Stuart Warden says DDR embraces all disciplines and anyone, not only academics, is invited to submit their work.

“There is a misconception that design is a closed concept but there are excellent design innovations happening everywhere which deserve recognition,” he says.

Visit www.design-development-research.co.za for more information.

Written by Lauren Kansley
Tel: +27 21 953 8646
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Liaises with the media and writes press releases about interesting developments at CPUT.

The parents of graduates in the Informatics and Design Faculty were commended for believing in their children as they pursued less popular course options at university.

No one understands the faith that this requires more than the guest speaker Dr Luyanda Mphahlwa who studied architecture at a time when no black person ventured into the discipline.

Mphahlwa had the audience in stitches as he recalled how, back in the 1970’s, the elders in his home town of Mthatha struggled to understand what an architect did because the majority of people were teachers, doctors or lawyers.

“I applaud the parents for believing in your choice of study. Some of these courses are not obvious so their belief in you must have been strong,” he told the packed hall.

“My mother is the reason I studied architecture because she remembered me drawing houses on a slate as a kid and she prompted me to consider that career.”

As the students graduate during a tumultuous time in South Africa’s political history Mphahlwa encouraged them to take a principled stand on matters without sacrificing their education in order to be revolutionary.

“It takes your own self-belief to conquer,” he says.

The Autumn Graduation series will run for this entire week with a total of 6894 students getting capped.

News of CPUT’s extraordinary alumni can be found in our Grad Mag 2016.

Written by Lauren Kansley
Tel: +27 21 953 8646
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Liaises with the media and writes press releases about interesting developments at CPUT.