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21 May 2019 | Story Igno van Niekerk | Photo Stephen Collett
Digital storytelling
Collaborating for the common good are from left: Willem Ellis, Karen Venter, Dr Deidre van Rooyen, Prof Hendri Kroukamp, Bishop Billyboy Ramahlele, and Dr Johan van Zyl.
Prof Hendri Kroukamp, Dean of the Faculty of Management Sciences quoted the Cat Stevens song I can’t keep it in, to capture the excitement surrounding the opening of a Digital Storytelling Lab on the Bloemfontein Campus on 10 May 2019.

After months of hard work by Dr Deidre van Rooyen, Willem Ellis, Karen Venter, as well as the staff of the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Centre for Development Support, the Common Good First lab was completed just in time for the launch attended by about 50 delegates from other South African universities, as well as private and public institutions.

Stories meet technology

In a message, from Prof Puleng LenkaBula, Vice-Rector: Institutional Change, Student Affairs, and Community Engagement, informed the audience that the launch heralded the joining of the old world of stories with the new world of digital technology. Julie Adair, Director of Digital Collaboration at Glasgow Caledonian University, Scotland, welcomed the UFS as a partner to this international social innovation collaborative project in a video message. 

Dr Van Rooyen, the project manager for the UFS, explained how she got involved in the Common Good First project, what the benefits of digital storytelling are, as well as what opportunities the lab creates for cooperation between role players involved in social innovation projects. 

Why the Common Good First lab?

The purpose of the lab is to create a digital network to identify, showcase and connect social innovation projects in South Africa to one another and to universities around the world for research, student engagement and learning and teaching. The lab has been fitted with state-of-the-art equipment for recording and digitising the stories that result from social innovation projects.

In a live Skype session with Dr Il-Haam Petersen, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), and some of the recent successes of the digital stories in Philippi in the Western Cape were shared.

Bishop Billyboy Ramahlele, UFS Director Community Engagement did the final honours by cutting the ribbon, declaring the lab open, and sharing the dream that the work done in this lab will contribute to positive relationships and cooperation between the university and the community, in making not only the university, but the country and the world a better place.


News Archive

One from UFS elected as Vice-President of ASAQS
2015-04-20

Stephen Ramabodu and Dr Marléne Campbell, Stephen’s promotor during his studies.
Photo: Leonie Bolleurs

The university is very proud of the election of Dr Stephan Ramabodu, from the Department of Quantity Surveying and Construction Management, as Vice-President and the chairman of the fees committee of the Association of South African Quantity Surveyors (ASAQS).

ASAQS aims to advance and promote the science and practice of quantity surveying, uphold the dignity of the quantity surveying profession, and promote the high standards of professional competence and integrity, among other things. Members of the ASAQS receive guidance and resources to succeed in quantity surveying, and to stay abreast of developments in the built environment today and in the future.

The ASAQS also provides an environment in which professionals may learn, grow, and work together to advance the techniques and science of quantity surveying. The ASAQS include quantity surveying professionals from every area of the construction industry, from private practice, government and quasi-government organisations to construction companies.

Stephan completed his quantity surveying (QS) degree as well as a master’s degree in Land and Property Management at the University of the Free State. In 2014, he completed his PhD, making him the first black South African PhD holder in the Department and one of the few QS PhD holders nationwide. 

In 2002, Stephen was appointed as a lecturer in the Department of Quantity Surveying and Construction Management under a programme called Grow Your Own Timber. He went to gain some commercial experience in Cape Town, where he worked for Davis Langdon. In 2008, he came back to the Free State, where he established Ramabodu & Associates Later that year, he returned to the university as a lecturer to complete all the remaining milestones of the Grow Your Own Timber programme.

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