The aim was to promote awareness and the importance of statistics across all fields, and in the daily life of everybody associated with UP. Dignitaries from the University as well as the SAS Institute, StatsSA, the National Research Foundation, and various other companies and representatives from industry were present.

Another important part of the celebrations was the prize-giving ceremony of the WYSUP 2013 competition. The competition, themed Unexpected Statistics was launched by the Department of Statistics earlier this year. Entries had to be visual in nature and exhibit statistics in a relevant way.

Ms Michaela Giocovazzi, a second-year BSc Actuarial Science student, came out tops to win the first prize of R15 000 cash, sponsored by The SAS Institute. Ms Giocovazzi’s entry was a canvas, the size of a door, with over a 1000 white folded paper (origami) shirts pasted on it. The one single red shirt included on the canvas represented her unexpected statistic.

Other highlights of the evening included addresses by the Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Prof Cheryl de la Rey, the Statistician-General of StatsSA, Mr Pali Lehohla as well as Dr Roelof Coetzer, President of the South African Statistical Association and Mr Desan Naidoo, Managing Director of The SAS Institute. Prof Greenacre’s skill on the piano while maintaining an informative and relevant view on statistics was a definite highlight among guests.