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Inaugural ‘Sanlam and Santam Economist of the Year’ competition gala celebrates future economists

24 October 2024 | Story Anthony Mthembu | Photo Stephen Collett

The inaugural ‘Sanlam and Santam Economist of the Year’ competition gala, held on 18 October 2024 at the University of the Free State (UFS) Bloemfontein Campus, has been hailed as a significant opportunity for growth. Hosted by the Department of Economics and Finance in the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences (EMS), in collaboration with Sanlam and Santam, the event celebrated the exceptional talents of young economists.

The gala brought together representatives from Sanlam and Santam, faculty members, the top 10 competition finalists, and the department’s leading academic performers from each year group. Jaco Geldenhuys, Senior Business Manager at Sanlam, commended the participants for their dedication, noting: ’Today, we not only recognise your academic excellence but also the potential, positive impact you will have in the world.’’

Prof Johan Coetzee, Chairperson of the Department of Economics and Finance, echoed this sentiment, emphasising that the competition aims to equip graduates to become global citizens who can solve problems, think critically, and communicate effectively in a constantly changing world.

What transpired during the event

The top 10 finalists presented their analysis in a 6-minute presentation before a panel of economists from the department, demonstrating their understanding of the macroeconomic environment, the methods they used to predict key macroeconomic indicators, and the lessons they gained from the process. After these presentations, the top three finalists were chosen and were required to respond to questions from the panel, determining the overall winner.

The top three included Tricia Khoza, who secured third place, Mokai Malope, who earned second place; and Reatile Seekoei, who was named the 2024 ‘Sanlam and Santam Economist of the Year’.

All three finalists expressed their gratitude for the opportunity. Seekoei shared: “Competitions like this are invaluable because they prepare us for the working world. We have gained several graduate attributes we were introduced to at the start of our academic journey.’’

In addition to recognising the top three finalists, the department also awarded certificates to its top academic achievers, ranging from first-year undergraduate students to master's candidates.

Paving the way for the future

For many of the participants, the competition provided an invaluable glimpse into the professional world, offering them a chance to apply their classroom learning to real-world economic challenges. Geldenhuys encouraged the young economists to use their knowledge to challenge inequality, promote fairness, and drive innovation and sustainable growth.

News Archive

Visiting Professor, Piet Bracke, Speaks on Public Mental Health

2015-02-20

Piet Bracke

Professor in the Department of Sociology at the Ghent University in Belgium, Piet Bracke, recently visited the UFS to speak about his research on the Public mental health and comparative health research: between social theory and psychiatric epidemiology.

At the public lecture on Monday 16 February, Bracke stated that part of the sociological attention to mental health and well-being was rooted in the 19th century's romanticists' discontent with self and society. The classical and contemporary social theorists' views on the disconnection between culture and the ‘real’ self resembles the more recent evolutionary psychological assumptions about the maladaptation of psychobiological mechanisms to contemporary societal arrangements.

In contrast to these perspectives, contemporary psychiatric epidemiological research has a strongly underdeveloped conception about the nexus between society and population mental health. Both perspectives, the social-theory-and-societal-discontent approach and the biomedical psychiatric epidemiological approach, have drawbacks. Starting from the pitfalls of the aforementioned perspectives, they have been exploring the challenges posed by the development of a macro-sociology of population mental health.

Recently, this research domain has received renewed attention of scholars inside as well as outside sociology. The rise of multi-country, multilevel datasets containing health-related information, as well as the growing attention on the fundamental social causes of health and illness, and the focus on population as opposed to individual health, has contributed to the revival of comparative public mental health research. Based on findings from their recent research, they have illustrated how taking the context into account is vital when exploring the social roots of mental health and illness. In addition, they have demonstrated how they can liberate a few so-called ‘control variables’ in risk factor epidemiology – e.g. gender, education, and age – from their suppressed status by linking them to core concepts of sociology. With their research, they hope to further the development of a macro-sociology of public mental health.

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