Thousands of first year students and their parents attended the Academic Opening Ceremony at the Cape Town campus. The official opening marked the beginning of registration at the University’s three campuses in Cape Town, Wellington and Bellville.

In her welcoming address to first years at the Cape Town Campus of the CPUT, Prof Lineo Vuyisa Mazwi-Tanga, Vice-Chancellor of the University, stressed that scarce skills “are critically needed as the economy moves to higher levels and as we aspire for an economic growth of 6% of the GDP. They are equally important for delivery of services to citizens and communities of South Africa”.

The CPUT is the only university of technology in the Western Cape (as well as the Northern and Southern Cape), and has more than 29 000 students spread over its five campuses in Bellville, Cape Town, Mowbray, Wellington, and Granger Bay. During the 2007 graduation ceremonies, CPUT awarded about 6500 qualifications at undergraduate and postgraduate level, including Honours, Master’s and doctoral degrees.

For more information please contact: Thami Nkwanyane on: Tel (021) 460-3363 Cell 0832068528 or alternatively e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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A highlight of the Installation Ceremony of the first Chancellor of the University will be a performance from the merged CPUT Choir. The Choir, which consists of male and female voices from multiple campuses will be performing two pieces. They will be accompanied by Choir Manager Thobeka September and by Dr Nina du Toit, Co-ordinator of the Disability Unit.

Despite the fact that the University has existed as a merged institution since 2005, the choirs of the Bellville and Cape Town Campuses have, for the past three years, practiced and performed separately. On 12 June 2008 the choirs merged and are now known as the CPUT Choir.

During the June vacation, the merged choir represented CPUT at the South African Tertiary Institution Choral Association (SATICA) competition in Limpopo at the University of Venda . The other universities that participated in the competition included Walter Sisulu University (WSU), Vaal University of Technology (VUT) and Durban University of technology (DUT).

Chorister Unathi Xulubana said it was a good experience and exposure for the choir. She added that this is a choir that will be representing CPUT during future competitions and many other special occasions. “We as the CPUT choir, we will represent and continue to be ambassadors of CPUT in arts and culture” said Xulubana.

Last year, the Bellville and Cape Town Choirs entered separately in the Old Mutual/Telkom National Choir Festival and were both awarded accolades. Cape Town Choir was placed third and Bellville Choir was crowned national champion. The merged choir continues to be of interest to Old Mutual and has been hand-picked by the company for use in Old Mutual’s new marketing initiatives.

Among the other Arts and Culture contributions scheduled for the Installation are Djembe drumming from the CPUT student dance group Distorted Movement and praise singing from Lonwabo Mdunyelwa of the Arts and Culture Leadership Programme. The CPUT Choir will perform the song “Plea for Africa ” and the male voice piece “Soldiers’ Chorus.”

September is proud of what the CPUT Choir has achieved. “They are extremely talented,” she said, “We can expect great things from them in the future.”

By Ruth Chisesa and Ilana Abratt, Marketing and Communication Department

Written by CPUT News
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On 20 August 2009 the CPUT chapter of the Golden Key International Honour Society was officially launched at with the induction of over fifty new members at an evening ceremony on Bellville Campus.

CPUT is the first University of Technology (UoT) in the country to become a member of this non-profit international academic honour society, with the Central University of Technology, Free State launching its chapter in 2010.

CPUT is also one of three other provincial member institutions, namely the Universities of Stellenbosch, Cape Town and the Western Cape, who hosted their new member induction ceremonies earlier that week.

Golden Key South Africa’s Director, Charlene Günter, was present at the ceremony, along with national Chapter Relations Officer Hope Khoza, who recognised both honorary and new members on the night.

Also in attendance was Anda Bici, a member of the CPUT’s Central Student Representative Council who was instrumental in bringing the idea to the attention of the Dean of Students and Alumni Office.

Günter welcomed the guests and shared vital information to inductees, such as application for the new executive committee and receiving correspondence or electronic updates.

During the ceremony the Golden Key Chapter awards were announced with Theunis Botha, a BTech: Engineering graduate now studying towards an MTech qualification, receiving an accolade for his outstanding academic achievements.

Student Affairs and Services Transformation Manager Sam Henkeman and Alumni Officer Nandipha Madadasana were also awarded honourary life-time memberships to the Society, due to their pioneering work in successfully launching the CPUT chapter.

Another heart-warming story was that of Miriam Owusu Sekyere, an international MTech: Oncology Nursing student, whose family travelled from Ghana to celebrate this milestone with her.

Henkeman then went onto read the Golden Key Charge, a pledge of commitment to service and leadership for newly inducted ‘key holders’.

According to Henkeman, the newly formed chapter creates the prospect of turning the tide for CPUT’s undergraduate students to excel academically and obtain international scholarship opportunities.

“It also opens a door to corporate partnerships for the institutions, where experiential learning and co-operative education can take place,” he added.

Golden Key’s local partners include corporations like Rand Merchant Bank, Sasol, Investec, BMW, Unilever and the Public Investment Corporation.

This ceremony formally marks the inception of the CPUT chapter, which entitles the institution to select two representatives to form part of the local chapters’ delegation at the 2010 Golden Key International Conference in Salt Lake City, USA.

The conference affords delegations with an opportunity for cultural exchange, where each country hosts a presentation highlighting the unique work that their chapters are involved in.

The Golden Key initiative is the result of a partnership between the Transformation and Diversity Office and the Alumni division of the Advancement Office and was embarked upon to acknowledge and reward academic excellence amongst the top 15% of undergraduate CPUT students.

At CPUT, the Golden Key initiative forms part of a bigger student-driven project under development that is aimed at creating a better sense of belonging, unity and developing an ethos among members of the campus communities.

Presently, Golden Key has over 300 chapters at institutions of higher learning across seven countries and boasts national representation with chapters in four out of South Africa’s nine provinces.

By: Thando J. Moiloa

Photo: (top right) Director of Golden Key South Africa Charlene Gunter, Student Affairs and Services Transformation Manager Sam Henkeman and Chapter Relations Officer at Golden Key South Africa Hope Khoza.(bottom) The new 'key holders' gather for a group photo after the ceremony.

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Professor Chris Winberg is one of only two women heading research chairs at CPUT.

The National Research Foundation supported the South African Research Chair in Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) with funding and awarded it to Prof Winberg last year.

The research chair in WILseeks to build knowledge in professional, vocational and technical education which includes traditional professional programmes as well as new and emerging professions that have the purpose of preparing candidates to engage meaningfully with the world beyond the university.

“By finding convergence between educational interests and those of communities and workplaces, my research has relevance for local economic development as well as for institutional development, in particular the strengthening of the University of Technology (UoT) sector,” says Winberg.

Her research contributes to an understanding of how vocational education might play a more prominent role by reconfiguring its practices in support of local needs, and the findings suggest that UoTs need to make regional dynamics a more explicit part of their strategy, improve access to their programmes through multi-agency collaboration as well as take advantageof opportunities to develop joint profiles and grow strong alliances.

“I am researching sites of collaboration to understand how hybrid teams (scientific, professional, governmental and community-based) develop a common language, create new identities and build a shared knowledgebase,” she says.

Ongoing research projects include curriculum development, the professional development of university teachers, academic leadership, institutional development for vocational education, appropriate learning technologies in vocational education for the productive convergence of work and learning as well as technical and professional literacies.

Winberg leads the Work-Integrated Learning Research Unit and her research focus is professional and vocational education (with a particular focus on engineering education), the professional development of university teachers and technical communication.

Written by Kwanele Butana
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CPUT Vice-Chancellor Prof Chris Nhlapo congratulated engineers from the university’s African Space Innovation Centre (ASIC) in person when the continent’s first satellite constellation was successfully launched.

The Marine Domain Awareness Satellites (MDASat) have already started successfully transmitting data after they were launched aboard US aerospace company SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket.

The mission carried 105 spacecraft, including CubeSats, microsats, PocketQubes and orbital transfer vehicles.

On Thursday, the VC and members of his management team joined the ASIC team at the laboratories where the nanosatellites were built in Bellville and watched the launch live with them. The group excitedly tracked the lift-off and then watched the MDASat being deployed about 45 minutes later.

Speaking to members of the media afterwards Prof Nhlapo said it was mission accomplished- for now.

“This was the biggest satellite project to date. Many other projects are in the pipeline, so it is a big niche area. So I say watch this ‘space’,” he said.

“We are a university of technology, and we must dominate in the applied science space; our research must benefit the people of SA. That is why we want to encourage more undergraduate and post-graduate study in this growing field so that the country can keep developing its capacity.”

Acting Chief Engineer on the project, Nyameko Royi, says each satellite will initially make an average of four passes per day, which will steadily increase.

“As satellites eventually drift further apart, we’ll have breaks between overpasses, and as they eventually spread further apart, we will have an average of 12 passes per day. We are also still tracking previously launched nanosatellite ZACUBE-2, which makes it 16 tracking operations per day. We expect an average of 1883k bytes of data to be generated per pass per satellite,” he says.

This data will be used to secure South Africa’s ocean resources, amongst other things.

Written by Lauren Kansley

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