The Women in Leadership Programme for 2006 was launched recently when women students from various universities in the Western Cape gathered on the Bellville campus. Twenty-five representatives from various academic institutions took part in this year’s programme.

“As part of the programmme, students attend workshops on leadership, self-knowledge, legal issues, group facilitation, conflict management, public speaking, networking and diversity management,” said Ms Mastura Jamodien, Student Development Officer

“The Women in Leadership Programme is a collaborative project between the CPUT and the Universities of the Western Cape (UWC), Stellenbosch (US) and Cape Town (UCT). The programme was launched in 2004 and is funded by the Telkom Foundation,” she said.

“The programme is an effort to address challenges women face. The aim was to give female students an opportunity to compete with their male counterparts on an equal basis. The emphasis is placed on increasing leadership opportunities and to provide support to women students,” added Ms Jamodien.

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CPUT and the University of the Western Cape (UWC) will play a central role in research and training for Integrated Water Resource Management in South Africa.

With funding of 1.5 million Euros from Nuffic, a Netherlands initiative for capacity development in higher education, the institutions will work jointly on a water research and training project that will span over the next four years.

The announcement of the project, which took place at the Bellville Campus on 28 July 2010, was attended by delegates from government, Nuffic and the Netherlands Embassy in Pretoria.

Addressing delegates, Prof Lagardien, Director of the Centre of Water and Sanitation Research at CPUT and project leader said: “IWRM will become increasingly important in order to cope with the challenges of the water sector in South Africa.”

These challenges cover the entire water use cycle and range from inadequate planning for bulk water infrastructure to poor community participation in water planning and delivery.

Prof Lagardien, said: “This project will give practitioners a new set of IWRM skills required by the labour market and increase their career opportunities. In addition, it will help consolidate IWRM expertise focusing on equitable, efficient, effective and sustainable management of water resources, through CPUT and UWC.”

The project also supports the National Water Resources Strategy which calls for complimentary strategies in building capacity and expertise among practitioners in the water sector.

The project will identify niche areas and develop related IWRM training programmes at both institutions. It will also establish four IWRM related Niche

Areas with appropriate research and training agendas and infuse cross-cutting themes related to gender and institutional learning.

UWC Dean of Natural Sciences Prof Jan van Bever Donker said they are looking forward to working on the project with CPUT.

UWC has an established IWRM profile. Their experience, coupled with CPUT’S expertise in water engineering, will provide a foundation for both institutions to create IWRM capacity in South Africa.

Dr Chris Nhlapo, DVC Research, Technology and Innovation Partnerships said this project will add impetus to research activities at CPUT and assured Nuffic that the institutions will deliver on the key aspects of this initiative.

Rashid Khan, Chief Director of the Department of Water Affairs (Western Cape) gave the project his stamp of approval. Khan said it is vital that one of the outcomes of the project is skills development. Nokwanda Mpanza, Water Chamber coordinator of the ESETA noted the project’s potential to contribute to improved sector skills planning.

Dr Carin Vijfhuizen from Nuffic said they will monitor the project and are looking forward to positive results.

By Candes Keating

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BTech Tourism students were rewarded for their hard work at a recent ceremony where they presented their research findings in front of a panel of academics and an industry expert.

“We had some excellent presentations and the panel members (CPUT Professors Jakobus Steyn and John Spencer, Mark Boekstein from UWC and Marissah Smith from Cape Town Tourism) had to deliberate for some time on the eventual winner and runner-up,” said lecturer, Associate Professor Kamilla Swart.

Out of the 19 presentations, Shaamelah Ismail got the nod as the final winner for the sterling presentation on the role of communities in tourism planning for Sir Lowry’s Pass Village.

Jennifer Katsch came a close second with her research on the Impact of the global economic crisis on major events in Cape Town.

Suzaan Rossouw just missed out on an award with her paper on Impact of the global financial crisis on five-star hotels in the Central Business District of Cape Town.

Other presentations which also received commendations from the panel included:

• Abby-gayle de Bruyns for her study on Industry perceptions of an events management qualification versus practical experience;
• Racquel Koopman for her presentation on Community involvement in tourism initiatives in Riebeeck-Kasteel and;
• Mariete Fourie’s presentation titled: Is ecotourism a viable tool towards sustainability? A case study of Intaka Island.

By Kwanele Butana

Photos by Clive Galant

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The Eight International Conference on Nanoscience and Nanotechnology in Africa (NanoAfrica 2022), which took place at The Lord Charles Hotel recently, provided an opportunity for scientists and engineers to share their research.

The conference ‘belongs’ to the South African Nanotechnology Initiative (SANi) and CPUT was chosen to host it. The institution worked closely with neighbouring institutions who served on the Local Organising Committee with the University of the Western Cape (UWC), CSIR, HySA and IthembaLabs/UNISA. “We worked very well together as a team,” said chairperson of the Local Organising Committee, Prof Veruscha Fester.

The focus of the successful conference was to showcase how nanoscience and nanotechnology are assisting the world in attaining sustainable developmental goals. Apart from cutting edge research, the conference also provided a platform for emerging researchers to present their work. The three-day scientific programme featured plenary/keynote, presentations, invited talks and poster presentations.

The conference had plenary speakers with “h-indices” of more than 150 and it also focussed on addressing Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The three parallel sessions consisted of Nanomaterials for Energy, Nanomaterials for Water Applications and Nanomaterials for health, biomedical and biotechnology applications, amongst others.

Fester said: “We had very highly cited plenary speakers and the rest of South Africa’s up and coming nanoscientists.” She also acknowledged the conference sponsors: UNESCO, Unisa, Department of Science & Innovation, Angstrom, Merck, SASOL, SAASTA and Metrohm SA, ITLABS/NRF Africa Chair on Nanosciences and Nanotechnology.

This year, NanoAfrica was co-hosted with the 6th South African Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Summer School, enabling the organisers to bring those at all levels together. “We are also immensely proud that most of our speakers are from South Africa and the African continent. We have ensured that other continents are represented with plenary and keynote speakers from the United States of America and Europe,” Fester said. The representatives comprised of the following:

• Universities of technology 10%
• Traditional universities 80%
• Business 2%
• Research institutions 8%

The plenary and keynote address came from different prestigious institutions, including, Prof Mohammad Khaja Nazeeruddin: Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale De Lausanne (Switzerland), Prof Dionysios Dionysiou: University of Cincinnati (USA), Prof Stephan Barcikowski: University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany), Prof Paul van Loosdrecht: University of Cologne (Germany), Prof Suchi Guha: University of Missouri-Columbia (USA), Prof Federico Rosei: University of Du Québec, Varennes (Canada), Dr Artur Braun: EMPA (Switzerland), Prof Fabian Ezema: University of Nigeria, Prof Emmanuel Iwuoha: UWC and Prof Ahmed Mohammed: CPUT

“It [conference] was a great platform to share knowledge in Nanosciences in South Africa and Africa. It provided an opportunity to networking amongst peers,” she observed.

She added that the conference provided delegates with new ideas for future research towards meeting SDGs, such as exploring catalyst that works in the infrared area and the importance still on improving efficiency of solar panels.

Written by Aphiwe Boyce
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Prof Shirley Zinn is an individual who has experienced incredible career highs and gut-wrenching personal lows, but it was these lows that she encouraged graduates to embrace and learn from.

Zinn, a Harvard graduate and accomplished businesswoman, was the guest speaker at the Faculty of Education graduation ceremony on Tuesday evening and shared a snippet of her own life story which included growing up in a gang-riddled neighbourhood and as an adult losing her only son unexpectedly in a car accident.

“Each one of us has faced our own tragedy and heartache but I am here to say that setbacks and disappointments will come,” she says.

“You have the potential to do far more than what you thought you could. Tonight we celebrate the futures you will create, not only for yourself but also for others.”

Zinn knows exactly what she is talking about since she herself spent many years in a classroom teaching, first at Groenvlei High School then later lecturing at UWC.

She grasped an opportunity to do her Masters at Harvard University in the States and despite immense financial challenges continued on to do her Doctorate at the same Ivy League university.

On her return to South Africa she moved her career into Human Resources and went on to work at many multi-national companies, the corporate banking sector and SARS.    

Written by Lauren Kansley
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Liaises with the media and writes press releases about interesting developments at CPUT.

CPUT’s dynamic rugby team will make their debut in the hotly contested FNB Varsity Shield presented by Steinhoff International this week when they will square off against UWC in the opening match.

FNB CPUT is making history as the first-ever from the institution to qualify for the competition and the captain and his team are appealing to the CPUT community to back our boytjies.

“CPUT students must be proud of this institution. It’s our first time to enter Varsity Shield so they must come to support us. I think they are excited to see us playing in Varsity Shield and we will do our best,” said team captain, Camagu Dlisani, a third-year Human Resource Management student.

He said the team had been training hard and their preparations had included a training camp.

Varsity Shield is played in round robin format while the final games will be knock outs.

Last year’s competition was won by the Wits team who beat UWC in the final.

Seven teams are competing for the title this year.

Thursday’s opening match between FNB CPUT and FNB UWC will be hosted by UWC and is scheduled to start at 16.45. It will be broadcast live on Supersport 1.

The CPUT team’s first home game will be on February 27 when they’ll face off against FNB UKZN in Wellington.

To view the fixtures go to: http://varsitycup.co.za/varsity-shield-fixtures/

Tickets on sale at the UWC Sports Stadium, R10 when you produce your staff or student card or R20 without.

Written by Ilse Fredericks
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The University of the Western Cape (UWC) Faculty of Education held a most productive face-to-face postgraduate student-focused workshop recently, where CPUT and the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) collaboratively dissected the topic for the day: Utilising Phenomenology as a Research Methodology in Education.

The workshop was attended by the seasoned phenomenological researchers, novice academics and postgraduate doctoral students from the three higher educational institutions in South Africa. At the robust postgraduate workshop led by Dr Karen Koopman, Senior Lecturer, Department of Educational Studies at UWC, two CPUT final-year doctoral students, Byron Abrahams and Clive Brown gave insight into their respective studies, which embraces a phenomenological research design.

Abrahams, Mathematics specialist in the Faculty of Education is supervised by Prof Yusuf Sayed and Dr Sharon McAuliffe at CPUT. He states: “In my doctoral study, I am using a Hermeneutic phenomenological research design to explore the role of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) in developing teachers’ competence in integrating technology into their practice and to understand better the provision of equitable and quality teaching and learning”.

Brown, Intermediate Phase Teaching Practice Coordinator and GET Advisory Board Secretary, is undertaking doctoral studies at UKZN and being supervised by Prof Sarasvathie Reddy within the School of Education. He states: “My research study proposes to understand a final group of Intermediate Phase student-teachers' lived experiences while completing Teaching Practicum in diverse South African schooling contexts”.

Both academics have collectively and most recently published an article within the African Perspectives of Research in Teaching & Learning (APORTAL) Vol 6 (3) (2022) Special Issue. The articles are titled:

• CPD and The Development of Teacher TPCK For Technology Integration: A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study [Abrahams, McAuliffe & Sayed, 2022].
• Critical Reflections On Researching Lived and Learning Experiences: Towards A Critical Phenomenology [Samuel, Reddy & Brown, 2022].

All the articles in this special issue consist of teaching and learning studies in which the authors applied a phenomenological research design. https://www.ul.ac.za/aportal/index.php?Entity=Special%20Issue%202022

Koopman emphasised the importance and benefits of doctoral cohorts in higher education institutions and their relevance in supporting postgraduate students to succeed from start to finish. Brown also reiterated that in his view, the take-home message of the postgraduate workshop focusing on phenomenology illuminates the importance of ‘human experiences’ and quotes the sentiments of Higgs (1995) by stating, “The world is in us, and we are in the world”.

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