Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Previous Archive
26 August 2022 | Story Anthony Mthembu | Photo Supplied
Katleho Nkosi
Katleho Nkosi’s design, which won him second place in the national design competition during the Student Entrepreneurship Week 2022.

Katleho Nkosi, a fourth-year Education student at the University of the Free State (UFS), obtained second place in a national design competition hosted virtually by Entrepreneurship Development in Higher Education (EDHE). 

The national design competition formed part of the launch of the Student Entrepreneurship Week 2022, which took place at the University of Venda on 18 August 2022. As such, students from many of the universities in the country, including Nkosi, took part in designing a poster that would be used to advertise the event. 

Nkosi is delighted and excited about this accomplishment. “This win was really surprising and unbelievable for me, because obtaining the second-place position means that my work is good,” said Nkosi.

The participants were allowed to conceptualise and submit their final product between 28 June and 15 July 2022. “I had no experience in this space, I only designed content for fun, and I participated in this competition because I was motivated by a friend,” Nkosi highlighted. 

Click to view document  Click here to view poster in full size.


The motivation behind the design

Since the Student Entrepreneurship Week was held at the University of Venda, Nkosi used the vibrancy and colourfulness of Venda as inspiration for his design. “When I was designing the poster, the only thing on my mind was making sure that I put something together that was related to Venda,” he explained. In addition, the theme for the Entrepreneurship Week was ‘Move to Market’, and Nkosi asserts that he tried to integrate the theme with Venda, and this is how the design came about.

The outcome of the competition and future plans

Although Nkosi did not win the competition, he did receive a cash prize for being among the top three. Furthermore, given his accomplishment, Nkosi would like to take part in many more design competitions moving forward. “Now that I have realised that I have the potential to win, I think I can take this as a career path in the future,” he said. Nkosi is also looking at merging his love of teaching with his newfound love for design. “I’m going to try and find the connection between design and education, because I really love to teach, so I could perhaps become a design teacher,” Nkosi expressed

News Archive

Department of Chemistry receives accolades at international conferences
2014-11-11

 

From the left are: Prof Andreas Roodt, Renier Koen, Dr Marija Zbacnik and Prof Deon Visser.
Photo: Supplied

Staff members in the Department of Chemistry at the University of the Free State (UFS) excelled at recent international conferences. Prof Andreas Roodt, Head of the Department of Chemistry, was honoured at the Pan African Meeting of the International Year of Crystallography IYCr2014. This event was hosted on our Bloemfontein Campus and delegates from 22 countries delivered their papers at the congress.

Prof Roodt received a medal from the President of the Moroccan Crystallographic Association, Prof Abdelmalek Thalal, for 'Building Science in Africa through Crystallography as President of the European Crystallographic Association'. Prof Deon Visser gave a keynote lecture at this meeting, while Dr Marija Zbacnik, post-doctoral fellow in Chemistry, received a prize for the best poster presentation.

Similarly, Chemistry PhD student, Renier Koen, received the prize as best student speaker at the Light Metals AMI (Advanced Metal Initiative) conference held at Kwa Maritane in Pilanesberg. Plenary speakers included delegates from the United Kingdom, the United States, India, China and South Africa.

Profs Roodt and Visser received a special scroll for having produced the best student speakers at the AMI series of conferences for the past three years in a row. The previous best student lectures were presented by Maryke Steyn (2012) and Tinus Viljoen (2013).

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept