talks@stellenboschuni

August is Women’s Month in South Africa and on the 9th we celebrate Women’s Day. In this podcast, Dr Mamello Nchake from the Department of Economics talks about some of the challenges that women in agriculture and agribusiness (women agri-preneurs) face and possible ways to help them overcome these barriers.

Carine Marks and Arina du Plessis at the Tygerberg Poison Information Centre serve a range of communities across South Africa and the continent as there are only 7 Poison Information Centres (PICs) currently in all of Africa.

To grow the availability of trained poison information specialists, they are driving signups for the Hybrid Learning Postgraduate Diploma in Medical Toxicology.

The poison info centre is key to save lives through their cross disciplinary knowledge of medicine and pharmacology, and local contexts, also considering drug fads and typical household chemicals which often impact young children.

More information:

https://hybridlearning.sun.ac.za/pgdiptox/

&

http://www.sun.ac.za/english/faculty/healthsciences/Clinical%20Pharmacology/Poison%20Information%20Centre/Pages/About-us.aspx

The “IT” series is designed to help you navigate complex, volatile and uncertain business environments with the Innovation and Insights required to foster Transformation. In this podcast Doris Viljoen, Director of the Institute for Futures Research, at Stellenbosch Business School, shares some insights on how one can move from sensing to sense-making to change making.

The “IT” series is designed to help you navigate complex, volatile and uncertain business environments with the Innovation and Insights required to foster Transformation. In this podcast Doris Viljoen, Director of the Institute for Futures Research, at the Stellenbosch Business School, speaks to Thys Pretorius, Learning Process Facilitator at Stellenbosch Business School Executive Development, about seeing a problem on a continuum from simple to complex and thereby knowing which actions to take in addressing the specific problem.

For many young South Africans, it’s probably hard to get excited about the annual Youth Day (16 June) celebrations when they can’t even get a decent job. In this podcast, Prof Dieter von Fintel from the Department of Economics addresses the high unemployment rate among the youth and also offers some suggestions to help young people find work.

The “IT” series is designed to help you navigate complex, volatile and uncertain business environments with the innovation and insights required to foster transformation. In this podcast Doris Viljoen, Director of the Institute for Futures Research, at the Stellenbosch Business School, will share the guide to playing the FLIP-IT game​, that she designed.

FLIP-IT is a game that unlocks innovative ideas, and asks participants to imagine next ways to do business from fresh perspectives.

The potential economic impact of the polyphagous shot hole borer in South Africa amounts to a whopping R275 billion over the next ten years, if nothing is done to stem the tide. The shot hole borer was first detected in South Africa in 2012 and has since spread to eight of South Africa’s nine provinces, making it the largest current outbreak of this invasive pest globally. In this podcast, ecologists and an economist from Stellenbosch University explain why the impact of the polyphagous shot hole borer is not only an ecological, but also an economic problem.

Speakers:

Prof Francois Roets, Department of Conservation Ecology and Entomology, Faculty of AgriSciences

Prof Brian van Wilgen, Center for Invasion Biology, Faculty of Science

Prof Martin de Wet, School for Public leadership, Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences

South Africans have been living with loadshedding for years now and there doesn’t seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel. In this podcast, Prof Sampson Mamphweli, Director of the Centre for Renewable and Sustainable Energy Studies, talks about our continuing electricity woes and how renewable energy could help us resolve this crisis.

World Hypertention Day is observed every year on 17 May and aims to communicate to the public the importance of hypertension and to provide information on prevention, detection and treatment.

Dr Lynne Julie, a general practitioner at the Stellenbosch University Campus Health Service talks about this condition.

On Wednesday 27 April South Africans celebrate Freedom Day. In this podcast, Prof Reggie Nel, Dean of the Faculty of Theology, talks about whether the concept of freedom still has meaning for us today and what a future vision of a free South Africa should look like.