Latest News Archive
Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
31 July 2020
|
Story Lacea Loader
As a public higher-education institution in South Africa with a responsibility to contribute to public discourse, the University of the Free State (UFS) will be presenting the 3rd UFS Thought-Leader Series in collaboration with Vrye Weekblad as part of the Vrystaat Literature Festival’s online initiative, VrySpraak-digitaal.
This year, higher-education institutions
globally are placed in the challenging context of COVID-19. Aware and grounded in the reality that the world will not return to the normality of pre-COVID-19, our responsibility as scholars still remains to contribute to public discourse and to offer
innovative solutions that will impact the lives of people nationally and globally in order to help them understand and adapt to a new world order.
Against this background and context, this year’s debates focus on ‘Post-COVID-19, Post-Crisis’,
with Health and Modelling, Politics, Economy, and Predictions for 2021 as the sub-themes. Placed in a COVID-19 context, and in lieu of the Vrystaat Arts Festival,
the series will be presented virtually in the form of one webinar per month during the period August 2020 to November 2020.
Date: 13 August 2020
Topic: Health
and Modelling
Time: 11:30-13:00
RSVP: Alicia Pienaar, pienaaran1@ufs.ac.za
Facilitator:
Max du Preez
Editor: Vrye Weekblad
Biography
Introduction and welcome:
Prof Francis Petersen
Rector and Vice-Chancellor, UFS
Panellists:
Prof Salim Abdool Karim
Director: Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA)
Chair: South African Ministerial Advisory Committee on COVID-19
Biography
Prof Glenda Gray
President and CEO: South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC)
Biography
Prof Felicity Burt
NRF-DST South African Research Chair in vector-borne and zoonotic pathogens research
Biography
UFS students win Innovation prize
2007-11-05
 |
|
From the left are, front: Kasey Kakoma (member of the winning team) and Ji-Yun Lee (member of the winning team); back: Prof. Herman van Schalkwyk (Dean of the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences at the UFS), Lehlohonolo Mathengtheng (member of the winning team) and Prof. Gerrit van Wyk (consultant from Technology Transfer Projects who arranged the first phase of the competition).
Photo (Leonie Bolleurs):
|
|
UFS students win Innovation prize
Prizes to the value of R100 000 were recently handed to students in the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences at the University of the Free State (UFS) during a prize winners function of the National Innovation Competition.
“The competition is sponsored by the Innovation Fund, which was established by the national Department of Science and Technology and is managed by the National Research Foundation (NRF). The competition seeks to develop innovation and entrepreneurship amongst students in higher education institutions,” said Prof. Teuns Verschoor, Vice-Rector of Academic Operations at the UFS.
Most universities in South Africa take part in the competition. “The first phase of the competition is per university where students can win prize money to the value of R100 000. The three winners then compete in the national competition, where prize money to the value of R600 000 can be won,” said Prof. Verschoor.
Eight teams from the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences competed in the local competition. The teams had to submit a business plan, which was judged by six external adjudicators.
The winning team from the Department of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology submitted their business plan with the title: “Using bacteriophages to combat specific bacterial infections in poultry". The team, consisting of Kasey Kakoma from Zambia, Lehlohonolo Mathengtheng from South Africa, and Ji-Yun Lee from South Korea, were awarded R50 000 in cash. All three students are Master’s degree students in Microbiology in the Veterinary Biotechnology Research group at the UFS.
The team who came second was from the Department of Physics with team leader Lisa Coetzee and they received R30 000. The title of their project was “Light of the future”. The third prize of R20 000 went to Lizette Jordaan of the Department of Chemistry with a project entitled: “Development of a viable synthetic route towards a natural substrate with possible application in the industry”.
Prof. Gerrit van Wyk, former dean of the UFS Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences and consultant for Technology Transfer Projects, annually drives this competition.
In his announcement of the winners of the first phase of the 2007 National Innovation Competition, Prof. Herman van Schalkwyk, Dean of the UFS Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, said innovation and entrepreneurship are important to stimulate and create sustainable economic growth in South Africa. “Through this competition universities get the opportunity to show to South Africa its capabilities in the arena of innovation and commercialisation of ideas,” he said.
To proceed to the second phase of the competition, the business plans of the three finalists from each qualifying higher education institution will be submitted for the national competition. The best three students from each participating institution will exhibit their innovations at the national awards ceremony early in 2008. The top ten entrants and subsequently the best three business plans from the total entries will then be short listed. The prize money won at the national competition has to be used for the commercialisation of the project or the founding of a company.
Media Release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@ufs.ac.za
5 November 2007
|