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13 February 2019 | Story Leonie Bolleurs
UFS INST Three
From left; Shaun Redgard (captain), Chantelle Booysen, Dr Hendrik van Heerden (coach), and Edward Lee emerged as winners of the 2019 International Natural Sciences Tournament (INST).

A group of three students from the University of the Free State – Shaun Redgard (Department of Chemistry, Edward Lee (Department of Physics), and Chantelle Booysen (the Human Molecular Biology Unit, Department of Haematology and Cell Biology) – emerged as winners ofthe 2019 International Natural Sciences Tournament (INST).

– emerged as winners of the 2019 International Natural Sciences Tournament (INST).

The final stage was held at the Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech) in Tallinn, Estonia, from 1 to 5 February 2019.This was the 9th annual presentation of the tournament that was originally launched in Russia.

According to the organisers, the principal goal of the tournament is to teach young engineers and scientists to use their knowledge to solve real-world problems.

There were six participating teams in the final part of the tournament. Participants from South Africa and Russia had to solve a dozen difficult problems in the spheres of medicine, biology, physics, and chemistry.

This year, the organisers decided to add some tasks with a straightforward connection to daily human life.

Redgard, who was the captain of the team, along with Lee, Booysen, and their coach, Dr Hendrik van Heerden (from the UFS Department of Physics), attended the tournament for the very first time, but they showed a high-level game.  

The final debate was held between the students from South Africa and Russia. The team from South Africa was persistent, confident, and structured. According to the judges, the finalists solved all the problems in accordance with the tournament rules. “The students were creative and original in solving all of the tasks, and this led them to victory,” they said.

The panel of judges was composed of a mix of bright specialists from universities as well as industrial and consulting companies operating in Estonia, the United States, the Netherlands, Portugal, Latvia, and Russia.

The founder of the tournament, Dr Sergey Safonov from Russia, says about the competition: “Our mission is to bring real-world problem-solving skills to bright scientists around the globe. We believe that science is not just an interesting subject of study, but a real instrument of changing the surrounding world, creating new products, and solving environmental problems. We believe that there are a lot of talented students around the world who seek to find their place in science and industry”.

News Archive

Q and A with Prof Hussein Solomon on ‘Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism in Africa’
2015-05-29

 

Political Science lecturer, Prof Hussein Solomon, has launched his latest book, Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism in Africa: fighting insurgency from Al Shabaab, Ansar Dine and Boko Haram, on Wednesday 26 May 2015 at the UFS.

In his book, Solomon talks about the growing terrorist threat in Africa, with the likes of Al Shabaab, Ansar Dine, and Boko Haram exploiting Africa's vulnerabilities to expand their operations. Explaining both the limitations of current counter-terrorist strategies and possible future improvements, this timely study can be appreciated by scholars and practitioners alike.

Q: If you speak of Al Shabaab, Ansar Dine, and Boko Haram expanding operations, do you see possibilities for their expansion even into South Africa, or is expansion mainly focused on northern African countries?
 
A: All three movements are operating out of their respective countries. Al Shabaab has attacked Kenya and Uganda and tried to attack the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa. So yes, there is a danger that they are here and, more importantly, newer groups like ISIS are recruiting in SA already.
 
Q: If the traditional military response is ineffective, what would be a better approach then?
 
A: What is important is that the force of arms needs to complement the force of ideas. What is being waged is an ideological battle, and, just as the West defeated Communism ideologically in the Cold War, we need to defeat radical Islamism ideologically. In addition, the military response needs to complement the governance and development responses.
 
Q: External players like the US have insufficient knowledge of the context, what would be the knowledge about context necessary for anyone concerned about the terror problem in Africa?
 
A: Allow me to give you some examples. The US trains African militaries to fight terrorist groups, but, when they return to their countries, they stage a coup and topple the civilian government. The US does not seem to understand that arming a predatory military and training them makes them more predatory and brutal, which results in civilians being recruited by terrorists, as happened in Mali. Similarly, the US sent arms to the Somali government, and members of that government sold those arms to Al Shabaab terrorists, the very people they were supposed to fight. So the Americans do not understand the criminalisation of the African state, which undermines good governance and promotes terrorism.

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