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Create to innovate to differentiate: Virtual Expo 2021

12 May 2021 | Story Ilze Bakkes

The COVID-19 outbreak in South Africa and the subsequent national lockdown severely impacted the usual physical open day mass-marketing tactic. At the same time, it provided an opportunity for the Department of Student Recruitment Services (SRS) to be super creative and agile in promoting the UFS offerings to the target audiences.

Once a year, the UFS invites prospective learners and parents to visit our campuses for a taste of campus life. But for many interested students, especially those living remotely or abroad, a site visit is not always practical. Furthermore, the 2021 open days on the Bloemfontein and Qwaqwa Campuses were again cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2020 Virtual Open Day proved that breaking from the traditional recruitment tactics and moving into the virtual domain was not only bold and innovative, but also offered more engagement and communication opportunities with prospective students. Building on the insights and success of COVID-19 response engagements, the Department of Student Recruitment Services has once again developed an immersive virtual experience for prospective students.

Ilze Bakkes, Chief Officer: Integrated Marketing and Innovation from the Department of Student Recruitment Services, says: “We listened to the needs and wants of our prospective students and staff. Therefore, the 2021 Virtual Expo will have undergraduate, postgraduate, and international student recruitment foci, offering more and relevant information in a visual, multi-layered, and digital way.” Information is presented through videos, photos, downloadable PDF brochures, and links to marketing material and the online application platform.

A challenge during the physical open day is the lack of time to engage with faculties or that not all the information could be obtained. The Virtual Expo is live now click here and can be visited until 30 September 2021, when applications to study undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in 2022 close. The Virtual Expo offers a professional, easy-to-navigate and hassle-free digital experience of the academic, social, and cultural life at the UFS on all three campuses – in the convenience of the visitor’s own space and time. Subtexts for videos enable differently abled visitors to enjoy the content, and data-sensitive visitors can download the PDF versions of videos.

Applications to study in 2022 are already open. To apply, click here (link to online application). For important closing dates, download the UFS Undergraduate Prospectus

For information on the Virtual Expo, contact Ilze Bakkes at +27 51 401 9028 or bakkese@ufs.ac.za.

News Archive

DiMTEC and insurance industry join forces to address the vulnerability of communal and commercial farmers

2015-09-18

At the workshop on index-based insurance for the
agricultural sector were, from the left:
Dr Andries Jordaan, Johan van den Bergh,
Bertus Kruger and Henk Vermeulen.

The United Nations identified climate resilience as a major focus for future development to ensure a safer world for all. Tailor-made insurance and financial products ought to address the needs of the most vulnerable.

Recent research done by the Disaster Management Training and Education Centre for Africa (DiMTEC) at the University of the Free State on the vulnerability of communal and commercial farmers to external shocks highlighted the importance of insurance as an important disaster risk transfer tool. Insurance is generally unavailable to most vulnerable groups, such as communal farmers, small-holding farmers, and new commercial farmers.

For these reasons, DiMTEC invited the insurance industry and other experts to a workshop with the purpose of investigating the development of risk transfer products, especially for drought. They were the hosts of a workshop entitled “Global Resilience through Insurance and Index-Based Risk Transfer Products (IBRTP)”.

Bertus Kruger from Agriseker and Johan van der Berg from SANTAM, together with other experts, attended the workshop facilitated by Dr Andries Jordaan, Head of DiMTEC.

The group attending the workshop, agreed on the following:

- Establishing a UFS-DiMTEC-led research team to investigate the feasibility of index insurance products.
- Mobilising government support to develop risk transfer products for the most vulnerable.
- Initiating forum discussions on risk transfer products.
- Promoting collaboration between the private sector, government, and research institutions with the focus on resilience-building through financial and insurance products.

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