Page 44 - DUT Excellence Semester 2

DUT HOSTS THE PRESTIGIOUS ENVISION2030
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MAGUBANE S BOOK EXPLORES LOVEIN THE ERA OF INSTITUTIONAL AWARDS AND RESEARCH AND
INNOVATION AWARDS 2022
The Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research, Innovation and Engagement (DVC: RIE) at the Durban University of Technology (DUT) hosted the much-awaited, prestigious, hybrid Research and Innovation Awards 2022 which took place at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre (Durban ICC) on Saturday, 25 June 2022.The event was held to celebrate and to recognise excellence and achievements of the DUT researchers and innovators.
In attendance at the esteemed event were the DUT Vice-Chancellor and Principal – Professor Thandwa
Zizwe Mthembu, the Keynote Speaker – Professor
Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela who is the SARChI
Chair in Violent Histories and Transgenerational
Trauma as well as the Director of Centre for the
Study of the Afterlife of Violence and the Reparative
Quest (AVReQ) at the Stellenbosch University.The
event also had in attendance the former DVC:
Research, Innovation and Engagement at DUT – Professor Sibusiso Moyo; Dr Phil Mjwara – Director General: Department of Science and Innovation; Mr Wiseman Zazi Madinane – Chairperson of DUT Council; Professor Faizal Bux – Director: Institute for Water and Wastewater Technology at DUT, DVC: Teaching and Learning at DUT – Professor Nokuthula Sibiya; Executive Deans; Senior Director: Human Resources – Dr Vuyo Mthethwa; Senior Director of Corporate Affairs: Mr Alan Khan; Master of Ceremony – Mr Zwakele Ngubane who is also the Director: Advancement and Alumni Relations; DUT Academic staff; Council members; DUT researchers; students; friends of the University; partners; donors; and the awardees of the 2021 awards.
Waheeda Peters
The welcome address was delivered by Prof Mthembu, who remarked that the staff and students deserving of the awards are cardinal in helping to build a DUT that is Different, Upended and Transformed. “We are celebrating people who are the source of our progress, people who are obviously the right people. These are propelling us forward,” he said.
The exciting part of the night before the awards ceremony included the dynamic talk by the charismatic Keynote Speaker, Professor Gobodo- Madikizela. She started her talk by acknowledging that she is a descendant of a group of scholars on whose shoulders she stands, who emanated from this region of KwaZulu Natal. Professor Gobodo- Madikizela relayed that the idea of inheriting from a generation before has to do with both blood inheritance as well as scholarly inheritance. She explained the significance of her father’s picture
appearing in the book without his name and how her mom scribbled down her father’s name in the book.“I started this story to return us to the idea of the human beings that we work with in our research. I come from the humanities and our work in the humanities often connects with the people whose stories we tell, whose stories we analyse.That my mother decides to write inside a library book with her pen, with her handwriting, Mr WT Gobodo. and by inscribing the book with my father’s name but also reinscribing his dignity in this study that did not recognise him as a person with a name, just an object, a trader,” conveyed Professor Gobodo-Madikizela. She spoke of her work which in the past 20 years has been understanding the dynamics of forgiving and reconciliation. Professor Gobodo-
Pictured: DUT Vice-Chancellor and Principal – Professor Thandwa Zizwe Mthembu with the keynote speaker – Professor Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, at the awards ceremony.
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DURBAN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY