Page 26 - CAO 25th Ann Coffee Table Book

Social responsibility 2016
virtual servers. This transfer into a virtual environment and switching to fibre connectivity was completed by mid-June at a cost of over R4m.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to balance the CAO’s value proposition with the availability of funds. The added uncertainty in respect of the national central applications service envisaged by DHET compounds this. Besides taking responsibility for delivering a quality and valued service to clients, George van der Ross’ main responsibility as CEO is the welfare and continued employment of the CAO staff. This has become a demanding burden, especially in an environment in which economic growth is projected to continue to be weak and unemployment high.
But this situation is not all negative. It has also created an opportunity to reassess the meaning of and the fulfilment of the CAO’s mandate. These considerations culminated in a Strategic Planning Workshop on 16 July 2016, attended by the CAO’s Board of Directors and facilitated by Adv. Daryl Newton with Michael de Lange of the NMMU Graduate School of Business. Among the strategic decisions taken were:
• To become sustainable, diversification of CAO activities is essential;
• While doing this, the CAO should prepare for delivering the full national central applications service;
• The CEO is to ensure that the IT intellectual property should be wholly owned by the CAO; and
• Various growth (diversifying) strategies, e.g. offering short training courses, coaching on writing academic articles/assignments and conference papers, student soft skills, study support, etc. need to be considered.
The CEO was tasked with operationalising and implementing these strategies. While most of these strategies are being achieved, they require substantial financial outlay in supporting infrastructure.
In February 2017, the CAO were approached by DHET
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The Data Capture Team 2016 – from left (back): Palashika Rampersad, Chrystalla O’Reilly, Simone Eaton, Nondumiso Mtshali and Sithandiwe Mazubane
From left (centre): Andrea Figg, Nirasha Lutchman and Mary Gordon
From left (front): Dhiren Moodley, Bongi Nkabinde, Lucien August and Sindiswa Zuma