ebeit newsletter

2015

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Faculty of Engineering, the Built Environment & Information Technology

Tel: 041 504 3099 | E-mail: [email protected] | Web: www.nmmu.ac.za

THE completion of the new Bitumen Lab will provide the Civil Engineering Department with a state-of-the-art facility to serve our teaching and learning, research and engagement needs.

Discussions with local and national industry representatives in the materials field like SANRAL, SABITA, MUCH Aphalt and CSIR as well as Jaci Barnett from NMMU’s Innovation Support and Technology Transfer Unit, have indicated that NMMU would be well positioned to provide a Civil Engineering Materials Centre of Excellence serving the Eastern Cape.

Apart from the obvious academic teaching and learning and research benefits, the following are some of the services that could be offered to industry and the public sector:

} Training facilities for laboratory staff linking with SANRAL’s mentorship programme

} Contact research both internally and in collaboration with bodies such as CSIR

} Materials reference testing for local laboratories

} Specialist materials testing that is unavailable in the region

In order for this vision to be realised, it will be necessary to extract external funding to support capital, operational and human resource needs.

Civil Engineering HOD Vince Danoher says that this building aligns itself with NMMU’s vision 2020 and is striving to be an engaged University and position itself as a leading Engineering Faculty to be benchmarked against.

The launch of the Bitumen Lab will take place later this year and once completed, the date will be announced.

Lab built to benchmark

SHOELESS … EBEIT admin staff, from left Keziah Tommy, Eunice Marx, Madelein Brown, Amber Share, Sisanda Mnyango, Liesl Stowman, Meera Naidoo, Leoni Erasmus and Lizl Blom participated in International One Day Without Shoes. This global initiative by the TOMS shoe company is designed to highlight the plight of children that have no shoes and who are exposed to daily dangers and health risks. The faculty also donated several pairs of shoes to the cause.

SINCE NMMU was established in 2005 the Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and IT (EBEIT) has had the most significant increase in graduates – more than doubling its figures in the last ten years from 462 in 2005 to 950 this year.

A new professional engineering degree, the four-year Mechatronics programme, was partially responsible for the large increase in qualifications achieved in this faculty.

In addition, the School of ICT – had a huge increase in student numbers from 2005. Two new qualifications which added to the student numbers substantially are the Higher Certificate: IT (User Support) which was implemented in 2009 and the National Diploma: IT (Support Services) which was implemented in 2007.

The Deans Award is awarded to the student on excellent academic achievement this year’s ICT award went to Loic Ndame.

Loic Ndame, recently graduated with his Masters in Information Technology his dissertation was titled: Wireless ICT Monitoring for Hydroponic Agriculture.

He graduated for his National Diploma in 2013, with an average of 82% and graduated for his BTech in 2014. The third-year project that he completed was among the top 5 projects of that year once again received a distinction.

Throughout the years, Loic has been a student assistant between 2011 and 2013 and a supplemental instructor between 2012 and 2013. He was also named the Chairperson of the Faculty Academic Forum and student

EBEIT graduates more than double

ICT Deans award winnerG R A D G A L L E R Y


HAPPY GRADUATES ... EBEIT Students from left Ro-bloo Malibongwe (NDip Building), Voninga Sono (BTech Quantity Surveying), Tamlyn Snyman (BSc Construction Studies), Antonio Conterato (BSc Construction Management) and Bathandwa Bo-vana (BTech Quantity Surveying) were among the more than 948 graduates in the Faculty of EBEIT this year.

FAMILY AFFAIR: All the way from Cameroon to celebrate was Loic’s parents (from left) Martin and Catherine Ndame, Loic Ndame, his friends Fulufhelo Netshituka and Daniel Tchouawou.

NEW ALUMNI … Quantity Surveying and Building graduates.

CELEBRATING … Engineering graduates from left JP Franken, Aleena Joseph Mathew and Francois Moller.

representative for 3rd year IT Students Forum.

Working on a joint project between the Centre for Community Technology (CCT) and Fraunhofer Portugal University, he is now a Senior Developer and Research Associate for CCT, and is also reading for his PhD. Loic attributes many of his successes to hard work and the incredible support structures that the School of ICT implements. “A lot of effort is made to constantly upgrade facilities and programmes for students to stay abreast of latest technologies” He says, “the staff are also very supportive and maintain an open door policy, where the students can engage with the lecturers who go above and beyond to help each student achieve their goals” he adds.

NMMU hosted Madibaz Day on 11 May to celebrate 10 years of exceptional growth. The celebration was for both staff and students to present a reflection of their journey over the last decade.

Madibaz Day featured both an expo and a concert and gave every faculty, school, department, division, centre, unit and entity a chance to share and showcase what they have achieved in the past 10 years.

“Its everyone’s chance to show-off, share and showcase what they have achieved in the past 10 years, ” said Director: Marketing and Corporate Relations Pieter Swart.

The Faculty did its best in showcasing the work of Engineering, the Built Environment and IT over the past 10 years with the additions and births of so many entities within the Faculty. It gave staff and students a great sense of the great developments that are happening here at EBEIT.

Open Day 2015

EBEIT celebrates Madibaz Day


WINNERS … MCR’s Milisa Piko (centre) congratu-lates the winners of the most interactive stall, School of the Built Environment’s, Leoni Erasmus (left) and Kurt Bruinders. The runners-up were School of ICT. The School of the Built Environment and The School of Engineering.

ACHEIVERS … Marketing and Corporate Relations’ (MCR) Milisa Piko (centre) congratulates the winner of the most visually appealing Open Day stall, School of ICT’s Head of Department, Karen Church (left) and Farren Foutie. The runners up were School of Engineering.

10-YEAR MILESTONES … Mechanical Engineering’s Liesl Stowman (above left) and School of Built Environment’s Leoni Erasmus at the Faculty of Engineering, the Built Environment and IT’s stall boasting extensive coverage of their milestones over the past 10 years.

| CELEBRATING A DECADE… Faculty of EBEIT staff celebrating 10 years at Madibaz Day from left are Sesethu Gqomo, Sisanda Mnyango, Nadine Marupen, Liesl Stowman, Amber Share, Leoni Erasmus and Lizelle Pienaar

NMMU Open Day is one of the highlights of the year as we showcase all subjects and programmes that are on offer in at the university.

Prospective students see and experience practically what the faculty of EBEIT amongst the other faculties, is all about. The Faculty prides itself in being the best in every aspect, from the classroom and beyond. Tying up with this year’s theme of “Getting your focus into the future”, each school had a photo booth in which all prospective students, NMMU staff and assistants could be a part of and engage in at our stalls. The Faculty of EBEIT strives to be the best and this year was no exception. The Faculty took home three of the four awards presented.

We would like to thank all staff and students who exhibited at the Open Day for the Faculty of EBEIT and availed their services and expertise. The event was a resounding success with well over 6000 visitors attending over the two-day period.

Congratulations to all three schools in the Faculty who won an award, taking home three of the four awards:

} School of ICT: Most visually appealing stall

} School of The Built Environment: Most interactive stall

} School of Engineering: Runner-up in the most visually appealing stall


Shamwari Uyilo launch

An electric Nissan truck and an electric vehicle platform provided by SANEDI, will be placed at the Shamwari Game reserve for use by the Conservation Experience Programme. This 20-seater truck will be used to host and transport students as part of Shamwari’s behind the scenes experiences, which exposes guests to several management tasks and projects in conservation, wildlife, ecology and community incumbencies.

The quads electrical all-terrain vehicle platform provided by Imperial Green Mobility, will be used by the rhino anti-poaching programme and possibly a mobile film unit.

The deployment of a dedicated carport that houses a solar array at Shamwari will provide the ideal

renewable source of energy for charging the vehicles. It also will provide a completely offgrid solution for a “green” game reserve experience.

The multi industry partnership forms part of uYilo’s activities to pool together various companies and organisations towards introducing e-mobility and its technologies in to South Africa. The intent is to create awareness test performance of EV’s in different roles and determine the feasibly of e-Mobility for the safari industry.

The research and development focus will be on the feasibility of developing a fully South African designed and engineered EV for the safari industry and its potential to champion several other rural industries.

The Women in Engineering Leadership Association in collaboration with the International Office for Education hosted a lunchtime lecture by Professor Eileen Drew, who is the Director of Women in Science and Engineering Research (WiSER) and professor at the Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.

The title of her lecture was Promoting Excellence through Gender Equality: Experience from Trinity College Dublin.

Prof Drew was appointed as the Gender Equality Expert to the EU Network of Women in Decision-making in Politics and the Economy.

She is currently principal investigator for an EU supported Framework Programme project called Institutional Transformation for Effecting Gender Equality in Research (INTEGER).

She spoke mainly about this project and its aims to create sustainable change in education and research institutions to improve the career progression of women scientific researchers.

Promoting Excellence through Gender Equality

FUTURE LEADERS … Guest speaker Prof Eileen Drew (centre left) with the WELA girls from left Lelanie Volschenk, Nadia van Aardt, Veronique Myburgh, Este-Lynn Minnie and Tiyani Ndlovu at a recent lunchtime lecture.

ICT introduces the First Lego LeagueSchools in the Nelson Mandela Bay will soon be exposed to the fun and excitement of science and

technology when the school of ICT introduces the First LEGO League (FLL)

First Lego League was created through a partnership between US-based organisation FIRST (For

inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), led by the inventor of the Segway, Dean

Kamen, and the LEGO Group.

According to the organisers, Lego helps with building self-confidence, knowledge and valuable

career and life skills and challenges children to think like Scientists and Engineers.

The teams will research challenges facing today’s scientists such as trash - from collection to sorting,

to smart production and re-use

The teams will also design, build and programme autonomous robots using technology to complete

missions on a thematic playing field.

The First Lego League Tournament takes place on 24 October at the NMMU Indoor Sport Centre

throughout the year, the school of ICT will also provide free training workshops for the teams

at North Campus of which the first over two days, will take place during the July holidays. Once

the challenge is released, teams will have eight weeks to prepare for the competition where they

showcase their work and compete for awards.

Congratulations to Goodness Onwuka, a Masters student in Mechatronics, who came third in the national finals of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining Southern Africa Young Persons’ Lecture

competition in May. He presented a lecture on “Ductile-Mode Machining of Brittle Materials.”

Congratulations to Thomas Hansford, a National Diploma: Building graduate who represented our Province at the National Senior Swimming Championships, achieving a semifinal in the 200 butterfly and a final in the 400m

individual medley. This was achieved in the same week as his graduation.

Reasons to be proud

CUTTING THE RIBBON...Dr Sibongile Gumbi – TIA - Group Executive: Biotechnology Sectors, Joe Cloete - Group GM Shamwari, Laurence Geyer – uYilo Director, Dr Tsakani Mthombeni – TIA - General Manager: Energy

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Papers presented at IST Africa 2015Students who work on projects related to the research agenda of the Centre for Community Technologies, presented papers at the 10th IST Africa conference in Lilongwe, Malawi during May 2015. One of the PhD candidates, Mr Richard Pankomera and his promoter, Prof Darelle van Greunen won the runner-up award for best research paper at the conference. His paper entitled, “Towards and ICT Framework to support a patient-centric approach in public healthcare: A case study of Malawi” is viewed as a valuable contribution to the integration of technology into the public healthcare sector of Malawi.

CTT collaborates internationallyProf Darelle van Greunen and members of the Center for Community Technologies visited Eduardo Mondlane University (CIUEM) in Maputo, Mozambique during May to further cement some of the existing collaborations between NMMU, Fraunhofer AICOS (Portugal) and CIUEM.

To date the collaboration commenced under the banner of an ICT4D Competency Center that was funded by the Portuguese Government. The collaboration focused on the use of ICT in Agriculture and some mobile Apps that support social infrastructures for local municipalities and other institutions. The next phase of the collaboration will now see the contextualisation of the Apps developed in Mozambique to suit the South African environment. This collaboration may well be the first of its kind in that Mobile Apps developed by students

from CIUEM will now be deployed in South Africa. During the recent visit, Prof van Greunen presented a public lecture on “The role of User Experience in Technology Interventions”. Ms Alida Veldsman and Dr Job Mashapa, both from NMMU, also presented two workshops on Impact Assessment of ICT4D project in the African context.

Youth Leadership Academy, GelvandaleThe Youth Leadership Academy is currently in its fourth year and has no less than 55 enrollments for the year. The FamHealth-NMMU Youth Leadership Academy’s mission is to educate the youth, strengthen the family and rebuild the community by aiding and supporting the educational, spiritual, moral and social development of at-risk-youth. Grade 11 learners from schools in the Northern Areas participate in this initiative over a period of nine months attending workshops and activities on a variety of topics that contribute to their development. Several presenters are from the NMMU community and give of their time on a voluntary basis.

ICT in HealthOn Friday, 12 June, Prof van Greunen, Director of the Centre for Community Technologies will demonstrate the Integrated School Health Mobile Assessment Application to Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor in Cofimvaba. The mobile app which provides school nurses with a tablet PC to capture the health assessment of a learner, was developed by postgraduate student in the CCT. As a next step, Prof van Greunen, will lead a consortium of partners to roll out such a mobile app to 52 districts across South Africa.

The it place for IT students“The Innovation Lab is an open space where students can think out of the box and exchange ideas,” says Director of the Centre for Communication Technologies Prof Darelle van Greunen.

NMMU’s School of ICT recently received R10 000 from the Professional Provident Society (PPS) at the recent opening of the new Centre for Community Technologies’ (CCT) Innovation Lab on North Campus.

The Centre for Community Technologies falls within the Faculty of Engineering, the Built Environment and Information Technology and uses research and technology to bring about change in people’s lives - with a focus on health, agriculture and rural development.

The lab was refurbished with the support from PPS and will be used by postgraduate students who are studying towards their Masters and Doctorate studies in IT.

“I am absolutely thrilled that PPS has come on board and funded this initiative,” says Deputy Vice Chancellor: Research & Engagement Prof Andrew Leitch.

“This is a space to share, challenge, criticise, express views on projects and find solutions together. I’m interested to see how there can be a cross-pollination of ideas,” he says.

The walls of the lab are decorated with colourful quotes, one of these reads: “A room with four walls and tomorrow inside”. Students can also write and share their ideas on these walls, allowing them to collaborate.


Centre for Community Technologies ROLEPLAYERS … Fraunhofer AICOS Director Prof Dirk Elias (back from left), Eduardo Mondlane University’s Prof Francisco Mabila and Dr Louis Neves Domingos and (front) Centre for Community Technologies Director Prof Darelle van Greunen and Centro de ICT4D Director Prof Polly Gaster discussed further collaboration on the use of ICT in agriculture and social infrastructure.

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ROLE PLAYERS … Centre for Communication Technologies Director Prof Darelle van Greunen, Executive Dean of Engineering, the Built Environment and IT Dr Oswald Franks and PPS’s Carl Vermeulen at the opening of the new Centre for Community Technologies’ (CCT) Innovation Lab.


PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS … STEM in Action learners about to take a tour of the New Engineering Building.

The STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) in Action programme, situated on the Missionvale Campus is an intervention that will help stimulate interest in Physical Science as a subject and to empower learners to perform well enough in the subject to follow careers in Science and Technology.

STEM in Action’s target group is Grade 10, 11 and 12 Physical Science learners from schools with a track record of excellence in Physical Science and Mathematics in the NCS final examinations. Physical Science learners from these schools were selected on the basis of their academic

achievement in Physical Science and also had to indicate an interest in a career in Science and/or Engineering.

STEM in Action students visited the Engineering facilities recently. They were a Group of 40 learners, from different schools around the metropole namely, Alexander Road High School, Collegiate High School for Girls, Pearson High School, Victoria Park High School and Westering High School.

These students were then taken on a tour of the New Engineering Lab, the Eco-car and watched a video of the Gonzo.

Double first in game design

FOR the first time ever a South African game design project has made it to the finals of the Microsoft ImagineCup.

Second-year IT students Nick Jordaan (left) and Jason Cross’s entry into the game design category now made the international finalists.

They started the project in 2014 and were the first ever first-year students to win the local leg of the Imagine Cup. They continued to improve on their project despite the fact that several other team members quit along the way.

They will now travel to Seattle, USA, to represent South Africa.

Congratulations to our staff who participated in the recent Two Oceans Marathon and the local Vodacom Corporate Triathlon

Building and Human Settlement Develop-ment’s Wayne Draai completed his first Two Oceans in 6:30

School of ICT’s Prof Rossouw van Solms par-ticipated in the Vodacom Corporate Triathlon Challenge (Corporate Ironman) as an individ-ual for the fourth time.

STEM in action tour for top achieving learners

Launch of the proposed New Academic Pro-grammes within the School of Engineering. From left Prof Hannalie Lombard, Trevor Stroud and Howard Theunissen.

UNITED AGAINST XENOPHOBIA … Executive Dean of EBEIT and staff from left Sesethu Gqomo, Leoni Erasmus, Dr Oswald Franks and Sharon Dent showed support at NMMU’s silent March against Xenophobic attacks in South Africa

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