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UFS to host inaugural ‘Sanlam and Santam Economist of the Year’ gala event

16 October 2024 | Story Anthony Mthembu | Photo Supplied

The Department of Economics and Finance, within the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences (EMS) at the University of the Free State (UFS), in collaboration with Sanlam and Santam, will host the inaugural ‘Sanlam & Santam Economist of the Year’ competition gala event on 18 October 2024. The event, to be held on the UFS Bloemfontein campus, marks the exciting conclusion of this prestigious competition.

About the competition

Prof Johan Coetzee, Chairperson of the Department of Economics and Finance at UFS, explained that the competition, launched in July 2024, is an initiative of the department, sponsored by Sanlam and Santam. ‘’The competition aims to equip our graduates with the essential skills required for the modern workplace, including presentation, communication, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills,” said Prof Coetzee. He also highlighted plans to extend the competition to schools, saying, “We are looking forward to broadening the platform to include school-level participants.”

In addition, Prof Coetzee noted that the competition is designed to train students to become highly skilled economists capable of navigating the challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).

The competition sees students - ranging from first-year undergraduates to those pursuing master's qualifications within the department - competing against each other by making predictions on key macroeconomic indicators. A schedule of these indicators is provided, and students must predict their values on an online platform before the official release of each indicator. Points are awarded based on the accuracy of their predictions, with the top 10 competitors progressing to the final stage.

Gala event highlights

Representatives from Sanlam and Santam, the Department of Economics and Finance, the top 10 finalists, and the department’s top academic performers from each year group will attend the gala event. “Besides recognising the competition winners, we will also honour our top academic achievers. As a department, we acknowledge the importance of recognition, and we are proud to be the academic home of these outstanding students,” Prof Coetzee added.

The top 10 finalists will each deliver a six-minute presentation to a panel of four economists from the department, after which the top three finalists will be announced. These finalists will then answer an additional question, and the final judging will determine the winner of the ‘Sanlam and Santam Economist of the Year’ title. The winner will also receive the largest cash prize.

In addition to the awards, Sivuyile Nzimeni, a data analyst within the EMS faculty and the developer of the competition platform, will address the audience. Nzimene will discuss the development of the platform and plans for its expansion.

News Archive

‘Captivating, powerful’ exhibition debuts at UFS

2016-08-29

Description: Sue Williamson exibition Tags: Sue Williamson exibition

Sue Williamson, What is this thing called freedom?, 2016 (two-channel video, 19min 25s)

A new exhibition by internationally-recognised artist, Sue Williamson, entitled No More Fairytales, was launched in the Johannes Stegmann Gallery on the Bloemfontein Campus of the University of the Free State (UFS) on 18 August 2016. The exhibition takes the audience on an exploration into the long-term effects of South Africa’s violent past.

No More Fairytales features two new video works. In It’s a pleasure to meet you, Candice Mama and Siyah Mgoduka—whose fathers were killed by Eugene de Kock—talk about living with loss, holding, on, and letting go. The other video, What is this thing called freedom?, draws the audience into a conversation between three generations of women in the Siwani family, who talk about the humiliations of apartheid, student unrest in the 1980s, and the recent #FeesMustFall protests.

“It’s all about opening up conversations.”

Both of these works have already been invited to participate in international exhibitions, the first of which, Un Autre Continent, opens in Le Havre, France, in September 2016. The videos will appear in 2017 in Without Drums and Trumpets—100 Years of War, also in France. The exhibition will run until 16 September 2016 at the UFS.

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Sue Williamson, It's a pleasure to meet you, 2016 (two-channel video, 25min)

“There is such an energy to this large piece of work; there is something captivating, something powerful about its vibrancy,” said Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Senior Research Professor in Trauma, Forgiveness and Reconciliation Studies at the UFS. The series was commissioned by Prof Gobodo-Madikizela as part of the project, ‘Trauma, Memory and Representations of the Past: Transforming Scholarship in the Humanities and the Arts’. The five-year research project is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation through a grant of R10 million.

The launch of the exhibition was followed the next morning by an insightful dialogue session between Prof Gobodo-Madikizela, Mama, Mgoduka, Williamson, and the audience. “It’s all about opening up conversations and trying to bring out things that have been so painful and so hurtful in this country,” Williamson said.

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