Page 23 - DUT Excellence Semester 2

DUT-LED CARBON LITERACY FOR YOUTH EMPLOYABILITY
MAGUBANE’S BOOK EXPLORES LOVEIN THE ERA OF
AND JOB CREATION (CL4YEJC) NETWORK PARTNERSHIP TEAM
SCOOPS THREE IAU OSCARS AWARDS
The Carbon Literacy for Youth Employability and Job Creation (CL4YEJC) Network Partnership team led by the Durban University of Technology (DUT) was recently honoured with three Innovation for African Universities (IAU) Oscar Awards, for having the project that has made the biggest impact. Two awards were given to the team’s Project leader, Professor Sunday Ojo for being the Best Supporting Actor who has given the most support in the IAU programme and for being the Best Costume-Best Dressed participant, proudly always dressed in his African attire.
The DUT-led Network partnership includes
the Sheffield Hallam University, UK; Durban
University of Technology, South Africa; Innovate
Durban, South Africa; Kisii University, Kenya; and Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Nigeria.
Speaking about scooping the three awards, Prof Ojo said it came as a surprise, mixed with excitement, after being a product of a voting process with hundreds of participants from the United Kingdom and the Sub-Saharan African (SSA) institutions as voters.
Prof Ojo, the Sub-Saharan Africa Project Lead, CL4YEJC Project said initially, the British Council IAU Centre of Excellence organised the online nomination and voting process, which was made open to the British Council IAU programme Community of Practice comprising all the hundreds of participants on the programme. The British Council IAU programme is the first of its kind involving the UK and
Simangele Zuma
SSA institutions, and so the competition was the first of its kind.
“The guiding rule was that there can be no self- nomination for individual awards, and for project award, no project team member can nominate his/ her team project.So,our nomination for the awards were made by others outside our project team. Our CL4YEJC project was nominated and voted for, out of the 24 British Council funded projects. Nomination and voting for the two individual IAU Oscars awards involved IAU programme participants from 84 institutions in the UK and SSA countries.The announcement of the awards was made at the grand finale celebration virtual workshop of all IAU programme participants, held on Wednesday 28 September, 2022,” explained Prof Ojo.
He made it clear that this is in no way an individual achievement, rather it is a team and institutional effort. He expressed his gratitude to the team members;DrAlveen Singh,Dr NdivhuhoTsikovhi and Ms Nosipho Dube under the strategic leadership guidance of Professor Sibusiso Moyo, the DUT immediate past Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research, Innovation and Engagement (DVC: RIE), together with the support of DUT’s Prof Keolebogile Motaung, the present Acting DVC: RIE, and Prof Oludayo Olugbara, the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Accounting and Informatics at DUT.
“It is also due to the immense contributions of our project team members from our partner institutions. As research output from the project, we are at present working on producing publications in
Pictured: Professor Sunday Ojo.
21 DUT EXCELLENCE 2022 // SEMESTER 2