Page 51 - DUT Excellence Semester 2

MAGUBANE’S BOOK EXPLORES LOVEIN THE ERA OF
Pictured: DUT’s Co-operative Education student on stage at the conference with the Deputy Vice-Chancellor: People & Operations, Dr Vuyo Mthethwa and the Director: Procurement at DUT, Ms Nonhlanhla Gumbi.
She also explained that investors in a company will expect the company to be led by a team with proven management skills, as well as money to develop and grow the company.
Prof Motaung gave an example of the commercialised IP developments at DUT and DUT spin-off companies, while speaking on associated risks and mitigating processes.
The session ended with a vote of thanks by Acting Deputy Vice- Chancellor:Teaching & Learning at DUT, Prof Singh.
The Day One activities culminated with a celebratory dinner, where the new CEO of Universities South Africa, Dr Phethiwe Matutu, a mathematician by discipline, delivered her keynote address titled: Strategic Opportunities, Coalface Realities and the Grey Territory navigation for Higher Education (HE) – a Universities South Africa Perspective.
For the past five years,she was the Group Executive:Strategy,Planning and Partnerships at the National Research Foundation (NRF), responsible for strategic planning and performance monitoring, strategic partnerships to leverage resources, and information and analysis to enable evidence-based decision making.
In that capacity, she successfully drove the formulation of the macro-organisational strategy, led the conceptualisation of the establishment of a Research and Development Information Platform for the National System of Innovation (NSI), and had oversight of the
management of key strategic partnerships that are instrumental in leveraging knowledge, human, and financial resources from partners.
“On behalf of University South Africa, I’m delighted to be invited to make an address at this Fraud and Corruption Risk celebratory conference dinner.The higher education sector’s role is to ensure improved economic participation in the social development of South Africa’s youth, adults and also to produce and exploit knowledge for economic and societal benefit.
“This occurs within the context of their National Development Plan, which necessitate the higher education sector to grow by a fifth over the next eight years.This growth is expected to occur within a myriad of developments and challenges – locally and globally,” she said.
Dr Matutu mentioned a few challenges such as the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the higher education sector, the weak economy, poverty and unemployment, the deepening global economic crisis and its devastating impact on the South African economy and the fiscal space of the state.
She also made mention that over the past decade and a half, South Africa had experienced significant increases in corruption, fraud, maleficence and that the higher education has not been spared of such deviant practices.
She then briefly highlighted fraud risk within the teaching and learning sector, which is the core business at universities.
Dr Matatu also made mention of the findings of the Staff Experience of and Perspectives on Teaching and Learning and its Future (SEP- TLF) survey report.
Her insightful talk further explained what happens in the university sector, including research related fraud.
49 DUT EXCELLENCE 2022 // SEMESTER 2