TEAM
SK A
developing country like South Africa. Projects like the SKA are so big, that if you do them right, they can really have a lasting impact wherever you are. For example, there are young people who have gone through our learnership and skills training programmes that are now working for SARAO. Recently a young astronomer contacted us to get involved in our outreach activities, because he grew up in one of the towns and now he wanted to become a role model and encourage youngsters to go and study maths and science. Last month you signed a memorandum of understanding with SKAO Director-General Prof. Philip Diamond, agreeing to work together to provide opportunities for African students to study and train at leading universities in SKAO member countries. How do you see this collaboration between the SKAO and SARAO? When South Africa put in their bid to host the SKA telescope, the human capital development programme included supporting students from eight African partner countries with the aim to create a growing community of astronomers in African countries. The future holds plans to expand beyond these eight countries with the support of the SKAO and scale up to other member countries to raise additional funding and broaden the scope of the project and the support base. When you think about it, there is going to be so much data generated by the SKA telescopes, so we need to build
sufficient capacity to make sure that the science can be done by capable people. Let’s turn to MeerKAT now. What kind of impact do you feel it has had in terms of radio astronomy in South Africa but also beyond? MeerKAT has made an impression that definitely surpassed expectations in South Africa and around the world. For example, at the MeerKAT@5 conference earlier this year, an event celebrating five years of world-class science with the telescope, established astronomers from all over the world couldn’t stop talking about how MeerKAT has enabled research that was previously not possible. You have to appreciate that we have built something amazing here. By having MeerKAT, we have to a large degree pre-qualified some of the technologies required for SKA-Mid and it has really improved our understanding of managing the radio frequency interference at the site and what we need in terms of computing and data storage. It has definitely had a major benefit for those involved in the SKA and given the world more validation of the approaches we are taking to design, build and manage the telescopes. What has been the best thing about being part of Team SKA? There are not many big multinational projects that have so many different countries involved and that do so well. For South Africa in particular, it is very special being part of this project and highlighting our capabilities. We are being
The robotics teams are one of the impressive human capacity development programmes run by SARAO near the telescope site. Credit: SKAO/Bruce Boyd
32
C O N TA C T
ISSUE
16