on Campus Issue 3 • August 2014 • For daily updates visit www.uwc.ac.za
INSIDE PLAAS simplifies fishing policy page 4
Death in the new South Africa page 9
Dentistry students give back to the community page 11
UWC athlete triumphs in USA page 15
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UWC students on top of the world
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lthough closely with the team South to deliver the highestAfrica quality components. didn’t even They were aided by get to participate UWC senior software in the FIFA World developer Peter van Cup this year, our Heusden, who did not students are world go to Germany but champions in the kept in daily contact. field of computing. The against-the-odds In a true underdog win was something the tale, South Africa was South Africans take the only African team plenty of pride in, says at the HPC Advisory Van Heusden. Council/International “The teams from Supercomputing China have tremendous Conference (HPCAC/ preparation for this ISC) International competition. We’re UWC senior software developer, Peter van Heusden, with UWC students (from left to right) Eugene de Beste, Warren Student Cluster not just winning by Jacobus, Saeed Natha and Nicole Thomas, who were part of the winning SA team. Competition. Five chance; the individual students in the group of computers, connected to form qualities of the six-strong team that took the trophy in a cluster that essentially functions as a students involved have contributed a lot.” Leipzig, Germany, represented so-called single system, but operating within a tight “We really worked well together,” adds “historically disadvantaged universities”. power budget of 3 kW. They faced stiff De Beste. Pieter Malan, for example, was a In outdoing, over four days, 10 other competition as they raced to correctly picture of composure under pressure, while nations at the fiercely contested computing complete the greatest number of scientific Ellen Nxala was very good with people, competition, the South African team applications within 48 hours. which came in handy when engaging smashed perceptions that Africa is a mere The judging criteria included workload with onlookers and visitors (among whom data provider that leaves the ‘real’ work of completed, cluster design and how swiftly were anonymous judges), especially as analysis to Europe or the USA. and accurately they could work through a 10 percent of the score was based on the The SA team, competing under the set of real-world applications. team’s ability to interact with others. banner of the South African Centre for High In taking the title, the South Africans The South Africans excelled in other areas Performance Computing (CHPC), comprised beat teams from venerated and wellas well. They were the only ones to provide Eugene de Beste, Warren Jacobus, Saeed resourced institutions such as MIT a presentation with their results, statistics Natha and Nicole Thomas, all from UWC, (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and data visualisations. They also came out Pieter Malan from Stellenbosch University the second-placed University of Science tops in adaptation and innovation, and won and Ellen Nxala of the University of Fort and Technology in China, and Tsingua at a ‘special hidden task’. Hare. Kevin Beyers of Nelson Mandela University (also Chinese), which came in Besides their system being the most Metropolitan University and Hardus third. efficient, it was also the fastest, their Bodenstein from North-West University Providing behind-the-scenes support application completing its calculations with were the reserves. were David Macleod and Nicholas Thorne four minutes to spare on the 20-minute The team had to demonstrate its IT of the CHPC, as well as Vernon Nicholls, time limit. skills by assembling, testing and tuning a senior project manager at Dell who worked