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06 November 2023
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Story MBALI MABOEA
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Photo SUPPLIED
The Department of Geography on the UFS Qwaqwa Campus recently played host to the Society of South African Geographers Conference (SSAG 2023), which gathered more than 100 students over three days.
Fostering academic growth, collaboration, and inspiration among students and researchers in the field of geography, the Department of Geography on the UFS Qwaqwa Campus recently played host to the Society of South African Geographers Conference (SSAG 2023), which gathered more than 100 students over three days.
Following a five-year hiatus, the three-day conference comprised student proposal presentations in different fields: human geography, environment geography, geoinformatics, and physical geography, divided into breakaway sessions over two days. Furthermore, day three of the annual conference included an excursion to the Basotho Cultural Village and Clarens.
The three-day annual student conference focused on different themes presented by two main speakers. The topic of the first keynote speaker, Dr Mahlomola Daemane, General Manager of the SANParks Arid Research Unit, focused on the contemporary conservation, transition, and relevance of science in policy and decision making.
The second keynote speaker was Dr Felicia Akinyemi, a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellow affiliated with the Institute of Geography at the University of Bern in Switzerland. Her work focuses on the intersection of geoinformatics, global change, and sustainability. Dr Akinyemi focused her talk on the integrative geospatial methods and metrics for sustainable land use. She introduced different techniques and metrics and gave students insight in early-career African research.
Speaking about the success of the conference, Nthebohiseng Sekhele, Geography Lecturer on the Qwaqwa Campus and chair of the organising committee, said, “The local organising committee was also very impressed with the quality of presentations from our postgraduate students in Geography, as well as the robust discussions that happened during the parallel sessions in the two days of the conference. We had a positive response of physical and online participation from many universities across South Africa. We are pleased that we have achieved our goal with this conference, which is to inspire the next generation of geographers.”
Brian Campbell one of selected few in Microsoft programme
2012-09-14
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Brian Campbell
14 September 2012 |
A UFS student in Computer Science and Informatics, Brian Campbell of the Department of Computer Science and Informatics, has joined an elite group of South Africans, was invited to join the Microsoft Student Partner (MSP) programme in April 2012. Approximately 500 computer science and information technology students are chosen worldwide each year to form part of this elite student development programme. This year, 16 South African students were invited to join the MSP program.
These students will be Microsoft’s first non-industry partners to be trained in its newest and most revolutionary technologies that will be launched within the coming months. As part of their commitment to Microsoft, most of the students will train the lecturers and students of their respective universities, as well as Microsoft’s national industry partners and lecturers of universities and universities of technology that do not have MSPs on their campuses.
In May this year, Brian assisted employees from Microsoft to present a Windows 8 seminar at its offices in Cape Town.
Additional Microsoft related events have been arranged by Brian. These include a Windows Phone development day and an upcoming Windows 8 development seminar. Five students in the Department of Computer Science and Informatics were rewarded with Nokia Lumia cell phones after they published at least five applications on the Windows Phone Marketplace.