The Faculty of Informatics and Design celebrated the success of their Master’s and Doctoral graduates during a robing ceremony on graduation day.

Four Master’s graduates and three Doctoral graduates were honoured during the event where they and their supervisors shared the journey they undertook to graduation day.

Loved ones were given the opportunity to symbolically robe the graduate.

The Information Technology Department’s Prof Johannes Cronjé, said the event also gave the graduates the opportunity to thank their loved ones who supported them during their studies.

Dean of the Faculty of Informatics and Design, Prof Tembisa Ngqondi, encouraged the graduates to continue on the journey of lifelong learning.

The three doctoral graduates were:

Jolanda De Villiers Morkel (Doctor Technologiae: Design), who was supervised by Cronjé. Her study is titled: An Exploration of the student-tutor interaction in the live online architectural design critique.

Emmanuel Udekwe (Doctor of Philosophy: Informatics), who was supervised by Prof Chux Gervase Iwu, Adjunct Prof Andrè Charles de la Harpe and Prof Justine Olawande Daramola. His study is titled: Effective utilisation of human resource information systems in the South African health sector

Ernest Etim (Doctor of Philosophy: Informatics), who was also supervised by Daramola. His study is titled: e-Readiness of the South African informal sector for electronic portal technology support.

Written by Ilse Fredericks
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The Centre for Distributed Power and Electronic Systems is very proud of their two doctoral and five master’s graduands who will be among the last students capped at this year’s Summer Graduation.

The students studied Electrical Engineering and Ayonkunle Oluwaseun Ayeleso and Gunjan Gupta are Doctor of Electrical Engineering graduands supervised by the CDPES.

Ayeleso’s research for his DEng Electrical Engineering focused on a novel alternative energy conversion and generation system based on Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) and the fourth state of matter known as plasma. He built a prototype MHD system and published seven accredited journal and conference papers for the work that led to his thesis, An improved plasma energy conversion system for Electric Power Generation.

This focus on alternatives is a big focal point of the CDPES, headed by Prof Tariq Kahn, who supervised Ayeleso.

“The Energy sector is at the forefront of everyone’s mind. Do we have a solution for a seemingly dystopian future? On the one hand there is space exploration but that would be pretty useless if you go into space but Earth falls apart. Spaceship Earth has limited resources and the allocation from our current lifestyle simply uses too much. The world has to adjust and new forms of energy generation are needed,” said Kahn.

Director of CPUT’s Energy Institute, Kahn says while they realise the need to encourage students to research alternative energy sources, they cannot ignore the fossil fuel mix and the gas reserves of Mozambique and Namibia need investigating. The Western Cape’s dire water situation also means relooking how steam is utilised in power stations with an eye on desalination technology.

Another important focus area is power grids, featured in Gunjan Gupta’s DEng Electrical Engineering thesis An analysis and improvement of selected features of power quality of grid-tied alternative energy systems. Gupta, supervised by Prof Wilfred Fritz, has published her simulation results in two journal publications and six conference proceedings.

Dr Atanda Raji supervised Gideon Joubert’s Master’s thesis Advanced technological solutions to the negative perceptions of nuclear power plants. Joubert, who will graduate summa cum laude, looked at how nuclear technology has evolved into a safer and cleaner alternative method of power generation since it was first introduced.

Like Joubert, Hlonela Gesha did the new MTech Energy Coursework which is a Masters course that runs parallel to the regular Master of Electrical Engineering course. Gesha was supervised by Kahn for the thesis An analysis of the environmental impacts of biomass application hybrid Microgrids in South Africa.

Tariq Lameen, also supervised by Kahn, wrote the Master’s thesis Development of a photovoltaic reverse osmosis fogging demineralizer for improved gas turbine generation output.

William Murray, who will graduate his MEng Electrical Engineering summa cum laude, was supervised by Dr Marco Adonis for his thesis Energy Wheeling viability of distributed renewable energy for industry. He investigated the economic viability and technical concerns of transporting electricity generated by an Independent Power Producer directly to an industrial consumer.

Supervised by Dr Wilfred Fritz and Kahn, Nkusi Emmanuel will graduate as a Master of Electrical Engineering having written the thesis Modelling of Harmonic Stability and Voltage Distortion between Electrical Grid and Renewable Generation Technologies.

Written by Theresa Smith
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Growing up in Lady Frere in the Eastern Cape Sinamandla Maqina was that child who would take apart the radio. He wanted to know where the voices were coming from, but would always end up with pieces of unidentifiable equipment strewn on the floor.

“Unfortunately, I cost my parents a few of those,” he remembers with a wry grin.

Today Sinamandla graduates with a Master’s in Electrical Engineering and the confidence to build a radio from scratch.

The 28-year-old has already done more than reconstitute a radio, his Master’s thesis was “X-band Antenna Design for Nano-Satellite Applications”. This means, supervised by Prof Robert Lehmensiek, he designed an x-band antenna, modelled and simulated it on a computer and then built a working prototype. This antenna has since been built and installed on CPUT’s second nano-satellite which will be launched into space on Christmas Day.

While the nano-satellite uses the S-band for communication, the X-band antenna will be used when it has to send large amounts of data down to earth.

Sinamandla picked this particular thesis topic because of his interest in communication, but he didn’t start out in this exact field. When he registered at CPUT he had to enter the Mechanical Engineering department as his first choice was full. Once he graduated with his Diploma he switched to Electrical Engineering like his older sister.

He describes his first few months at CPUT as difficult, confusing even, because everything was studied through English only. “The problem was in class it would be difficult to understand, but as you go through the work you would see there are things you understand, but they are just moving really fast. Group study helped a lot.”

It also helped to realise that he wasn’t the only student who was struggling: “It’s not anything new, this idea of learning, it is just how it is being done and the speed at which it comes at you, that is different.”

Sinamanda figures next up he had better get a job in the real world of space aeronautics communication, but he doesn’t discount starting on a DEng in the near future. It’s just a case of fine-tuning what he wants, something he learned over the years at CPUT.

Written by Theresa Smith
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It was a celebration of hard work and resilience when postgraduate graduates in the Faculty of Informatics and Design were “robed” during a special ceremony. 

The ceremony has become a tradition in the Faculty and gives the graduates and their supervisors the opportunity to share and reflect on their journey to graduation while family members are given the chance to robe the graduates.

Six Master’s and eight doctoral candidates were robed during this morning’s ceremony while distinguished artist Conrad Theys, who will be receiving an honorary doctorate in Arts and Design during this evening’s ceremony, was also honoured.

“Thank you for recognising me as one of you. Thank you for recognising me as an artist and as a child of South Africa,” said Theys.

“I feel very honoured. I don’t how to tell you how pleased I am, how lucky I am.”

Written by Ilse Fredericks
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