Voices from SA

Kolosa Madikizela was born in Bizana in the Eastern Cape. She has worked in the construction and engineering industry for fifteen years and is the head of the Built Environment Unit at Aurecon, a multinational engineering company.

Kolosa is committed to transformation on a  number of levels. Not only racial and gender transformation, but the transformation of thoughts and ways of working as well.

She also feels that construction companies, developers and the government need to work together on a more equatable and broader development agenda that looks to close the gap between townships and cities  across the country.

Kolosa and I also spoke about the impact of technology on design, sustainable construction and the development of smart cities in the shadow of the fourth industrial revolution.

My guest this week is Rorisang Tshabalala. Rori is a business strategist with a focus on business model research and development, who looks for innovative solutions that help companies grow. He likes to bring ideas to life and develop ideas that impact the world in a fundamental way. He runs Chapter One Innovation.

He feels that companies can play a significant and crucial role in social mobility. We also chatted about his desire to unlock the power of South African townships by turning them into proper cities with all the investment and infrastructure that this entails.

Another topic we touched on is the evolving Fourth Industrial Revolution and how policies need to be developed for South Africa and the region to get as much benefit from this coming revolution as possible

I met first Imraan at the University of Natal in the mid-1990's when he worked for the Trade Union Research Project (TURP) that was based on the campus. We used to play football on the weekends.

These days he is the Dean of Commerce, Law and Management at the University of the Witwatersrand.

He recently chaired the Advisory Panel on the National Minimum Wage.

We chatted about his journey from trade union researcher into university management and spoke along the way about the current state of the trade union movement, the national minimum wage, the dilemmas that faced university management in the face of the Fees Must Fall movement and the role of a university in South Africa today.

Dan Moyane started his media career with the English-language service of Radio Mozambique in 1979 after fleeing South Africa, the security police on his tail.

On returning from exile in 1991 Dan worked for independent Talk Radio 702. He has held a number of roles in South African broadcasting and is currently co-host of Morning News Today on eNCA four days a week. He is also head of Public Affairs for MMI Holdings.

In this episode we chat about growing up in apartheid South Africa, the Soweto Uprising, the death of Samora Machel, the challenges facing post-liberation South Africa, the state of the ANC and racism in business.

My guest this week is Nozipho Mbanjwa. She is a broadcaster, moderator and entrepreneur. Nozipho has worked as an anchor for CNBC Africa, has moderated discussions for the World Bank, IMF and BRICS, and runs The Talent Firm.

Raised in Pietermaritzburg, Nozipho studied at the University of Pretoria before doing an internship in the Office of the Presidency while completing her Honours degree in International Relations. She also has a Masters Degree in International Studies & Diplomacy from the University of London and a Masters Degree in Development Finance from Stellenbosch Business School.

We spoke about her childhood in Pietermaritzburg, the lack of transformation in business leadership in South Africa, racism and gender violence, among other things.

My guest this week is Prof Ruth Hall. Ruth is based at PLAAS, the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian studies based at the University of the Western Cape.

Find out more about the work of PLAAS at plaas.org.za

She is one of South Africa's leading experts on land redistribution, land restitution and land tenure in the country. All three of her post-graduate degrees have focused on the land question in South Africa.

With land suddenly in the spotlight and a general election around the corner I thought it would be interesting to get some perspective on the debate.

While a lot of discussion is taking place on the need to change the South African Constitution in order to move land distribution forward, Ruth feels it is a lack of political will from the ANC that has stalled the process.

She also feels that land redistribution efforts have focused on giving farms to a politically connected urban elite, and not the poorest of the poor.

My guest this week is Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng the new Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Town.  She officially took up her position at the beginning of July.

We spoke about her childhood and schooling, and how she recognised and cultivated a love for mathematics and mathematics education.  Professor Phakeng is a B1 rated researcher with more than 80 research papers to her name.

The conversation touched on issues around transformation and decolonization of tertiary education and the opportunities that the fees must fall movement can offer a university like UCT.

Mamokgethi also laid out her hopes for how the university might modernise over the next five to ten years, a process she says must begin with joint responsibility and reconciliation. Between all parties

Please not that this interview took place two days before the tragic death of Professor Bongani Mayosi, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at UCT. Prof Mayosi committed suicide on July 27.

Selfie credit: Prof Mamokgethi Phakeng

Christi van der Westhuizen is Professor of Sociology at the University of Pretoria. She is the author of two books. Her first book, "White Power", published in 2007, focuses on the rise and fall of the National Party. Her most recent offering is "Sitting Pretty-White Afrikaans Women in Postapartheid South Africa". She has written numerous academic publications and papers.

Christi grew up in Boksburg, outside Johannesburg. Her early career was as a journalist for the the anti-apartehid Afrikaans newspaper Vrye Weekblad, and then the more mainstream Beeld. After a time working in international relations she launched her academic career which has focued on issues of race and identity.

We spoke about her childhood in Boksburg, her early questioning of  the Afrikaner mainstream around her, and some of the the themes of race, power and gender identity that form the backbone of her books.

We also chatted about issues around democratization, the re-emergence of a toxic Afrikaner nationalism, and the need to reboot the south African political discourse.