Lectures

Lecture

'Welding - the Achilles heel of the South African manufacturing industry?'

Welding remains the most important metal joining technology available to the manufacturing industry today, with widespread application in fields as diverse as microelectronics, power generation, structural design and the petrochemical industry. While global demand for consistently high quality welds in a wide variety of advanced materials and applications continues to grow, is the South African...

Lecture

Quality education for all - South Africa's quest for the 'Holy Grail'?

"Education for all" has been the focus of international agencies for the past two decades. On a continent where "education for all" has been unattainable to date, South Africa has set itself the ambitious goal of attaining this by the internationally stipulated deadline of 2015. "Education for all" involves providing education to everyone of appropriate age, thereby satisfying everyone's...

Lecture

‘21st Century clouds above synthesis of batch chemical processes’

The chemical industry is broadly categorised into batch and continuous chemical processes. Batch chemical processes are usually encountered in the sector of the chemical industry that capitalises in low volume high value added products. The pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals and some food facilities fall in this category. On the other hand continuous operations are ideal for the bulk manufacturing...

Lecture

‘Universal human rights - asking for too much?’

Human rights, as a set of norms that is applicable to everyone, everywhere, has been described as 'the idea of our time'. Prof Christof Heyns, poses the question of whether the current rapid proliferation of human rights systems especially at a regional level is fostering or hampering the universal human rights project. The lecture places the above discussion in the broader context of whether -...

Lecture

‘Doomsday Scenarios and the fate of the African honeybee population’

The threat to honeybee populations in the USA, Europe and Latin America over the past few years has received extensive media attention. Yet, very little is said about African honeybee populations, even though honeybees come from Africa. We need to understand the impact of African honeybees on global populations to find solutions for the regional crises on the other continents.