Page 33 - DUT Annual Report 2020

• Data Culture: Driven through Planning, this area focuses on transforming the data culture towards one of evidence-led decision-making, monitoring and evaluation by making data accessible, building capacity to use data and aligning work on student success to ENVISION2030.
STUDENT AND STAFF
ACHIEVEMENTS AND AWARDS
Our Students
During 2020 a number of our students were recognised nationally by leading organisations in the public, private and non-profit sectors, including Google, Microsoft, the Moses Kotane Institute (MKI) and Twyg, through awards, mentorships and employment opportunities. Nkanyiso Dlamini, a third-year Accounting student, received an MKI Innovation Award for his home décor products manufactured from recycled materials. A Faculty of Accounting and Informatics student, Nombuso Msweli, was chosen by Google as a South African ambassador for its Women Techmakers Ambassadors (WTA) project. WTAs are community leaders around the world who work towards achieving gender parity in the ICT industry. A team of IT students were winners in various categories in the 2020 Historically Disadvantaged Universities Hackathon. With support from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other sponsors, the 48-hour online Hackathon focused on finding solutions to the challenges of online learning. Advanced Diploma in IT student Gomolemo Mohapi was appointed as a Program Manager with Microsoft in Seattle. His work as an app developer will focus on upskilling students on a global level. Mr Mohapi was also part of the team that won 1st prize for the MKI Hackathon Service Delivery App. In the Faculty of Arts and Design, Alex van Heerden was recognised by Twyg for her contribution to Sustainable Fashion. Twyg is a non-profit company whose work is aligned with the goal of sustainable consumption and production. Several other students from the Department of Fashion and Textiles were placed in the top 10 finalists at the Durban July Young Designer student fashion awards. Nadine Ponnusamy, who is studying towards an Honours in Urban and Regional Planning, won the international GeoTech Center Virtual GIS Day Mapping Contest and plans to make her career as a specialist in Geographic Information Systems.
Our Staff
DUT staff also actively represented the University and won accolades across various platforms during a
difficult year. In the Department of Fashion and Textiles, Ms Nirma Madhoo was declared the winner in the National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS) awards in the category Best Digital Humanities Visualization or Infographic, for her submission titled Azimuth: An Experiment of Virtual Reality for the Fashion Film Genre. The NIHSS awards recognise excellence, innovation and social responsibility in scholarship, creative and digital outputs in the humanities and social sciences. The film has also been screened in the USA, Germany and Australia among others. Ms Lee Scott, also from the Department of Fashion and Textiles, and Mr Chris de Beer from the Department of Jewellery Design presented at the Korea Fashion and Culture Association’s International Fashion Biennale, which was held as a virtual exhibition in Seoul, South Korea. Ms Scott’s submission, a long shift dress, was entitled Memory, representing old memories of childhood wishes and dreams. A team from the Urban Futures Centre (UFC), led by Prof Monique Marks, won the inaugural Team Award presented by the HSRC-USAf Medal in Social Sciences and Humanities. The 2020 Medal was unique in that it honoured the contributions made by social scientist, researcher and academic teams to South Africa’s fight against COVID-19. The award recognised the UFC’s work on reducing the impact of the pandemic on those people in our communities who are both homeless and struggle with a drug dependency disorder. UFC’s Bellhaven Harm Reduction Centre was also featured in the national ‘Good Hood’ project which celebrates stories of good practice, collaboration and innovation in the country’s cities and municipalities. The Bellhaven facility provides health and psycho-social services to roughly 200 homeless and low-income people with a heroin use disorder.
SUPPORT TO OUR STUDENTS
The University recognises the support derived from many of its quad-helix partners in providing financial assistance to its students. Despite the economic setback resulting from COVID-19, financial support from business and industry grew by over 400% in 2020 to provision 626 students, up from 236 in 2019.
However, the University’s assistance provided to postgraduate students decreased, both in terms of the number of students receiving assistance (a 27% decrease), and the financial amount provisioned (a 25% decrease). Awards made through the Undergraduate Scholarship Award Scheme (USAS) also decreased by almost 46% in monetary terms between 2019 and 2020.
DURBAN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY ANNUAL REPORT 2020
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