THE CRISES, TECH, RESEARCH AND PEOPLE SHAKING UP OUR WORLD (SPOILER: QUANTUM IS HERE)
Research . Rethink . Relearn
DISRUPTION AS A CATALYST FOR REINVENTION
Disruption is often viewed through a negative lens –unpredictable, destabilising, even threatening. For a leading African university like Wits, disruption has become not just an inevitability, but a force for reinvention. When harnessed with intent, disruption can drive equity, innovation and bold, necessary change.
We have seen this first-hand. The Covid-19 pandemic was one of the greatest disruptors of our generation – upending lives, economies and institutions. However, it also catalysed extraordinary scientific progress. The rapid development of mRNA vaccines did not just change how we respond to pandemics, it disrupted the vaccine paradigm entirely, unlocking potential applications for HIV, TB and cancer. It is no coincidence that South African researchers, including those at Wits, are now at the forefront of mRNA innovation. This is positive disruption with global and local impact. Likewise, the HIV epidemic – devastating as it was –disrupted the traditional hierarchies of medical science. It forced researchers to partner with activists, integrate social science and respond to the lived realities of communities. What emerged was not only groundbreaking biomedical
Curios.ty is Wits’ award-winning research magazine that explores innovative ideas, cutting-edge science, and thought-provoking discoveries. First published in 2017, Curios.ty provides a platform for Wits academics, researchers, and postgraduate students to share insights that tackle the pressing issues of our time. Each edition is themed and unpacks these topics in an accessible and engaging way, bringing research to life. The #Disruption edition explores the crises, tech, research, and people shaking up our world in 2025. It’s the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology and we reveal how Wits scientists have engineered a worldfirst quantum system that is able to ignore noise. Five years post-Covid, we showcase African biomedical and public health innovations that emerged during the crisis and how we can pandemic-proof our future. Artificial intelligence is everywhere and Wits MIND Institute fellows bring a human and scientific lens to the purpose, practice, and ethics of human, animal and machine intelligence. We explore how researchers are disrupting the status quo in diverse fields including agriculture and architecture, animation and rock art, precision medicine and Amapiano, the law, and research management. With the world in tumult and on a geopolitical knife edge, disruption is both a crisis and an opportunity. Wits researchers lead the way.
progress but a new model of science: people-centred, interdisciplinary and accountable. That legacy continues to shape how we confront today’s complex health and social challenges.
The same disruptive energy is transforming how we teach, publish and collaborate. Movements to decolonise higher education have disrupted the dominance of Eurocentric epistemologies, creating space for African knowledge systems, languages and values. The open science movement has upended the traditional publishing monopoly, pushing for free and fair access to knowledge – especially vital for researchers in the Global South.
Technological advances are another source of positive disruption. Artificial intelligence is revolutionising discovery, from predicting protein structures to enhancing diagnostics and unlocking patterns in big data. At Wits, initiatives like the Machine Intelligence and Neural Discovery Institute (MIND) are not only leveraging AI but doing so ethically, inclusively and with a deep grounding in human-centred values.
Disruption is also shifting the energy and climate discourse. The move towards renewable energy and a just transition is upending deeply entrenched fossil fuel systems. In South Africa, this offers an unprecedented opportunity to build energy resilience, reduce inequality and empower communities – if done correctly.
Disruption is not inherently good. It must be directed. Left unchecked, it can entrench inequality, erode trust and fragment collaboration. The recent withdrawal of global health research funding, the politicisation of international science and the digital divide are warnings of how disruption can deepen global asymmetries.
The lesson is clear: disruption, while uncomfortable, is also generative. It allows us to question the status quo, reimagine the purpose of research and create knowledge systems that serve society more equitably. Our role as scientists and scholars is to lead this disruption – not resist it so that we build a future that is not only smarter, but fairer and more just.
Professor Lynn Morris Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research and Innovation
Professor Lynn Morris
Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research and Innovation
Professor Brett Bowman
Director: Research Development
Shirona Patel
Head: Communications and Managing Editor
Schalk Mouton
Senior Communications Officer and Curios.ty Editor
Deborah Minors
Senior Communications Officer and Curios.ty Co-Editor
Erna Van Wyk
Senior Multimedia Communications Officer and Curios.ty Digital Director
Chanté Schatz
Multimedia Communications Officer and Curios.ty
Photographer and Picture Editor
Wendy Mothata
Social Media Officer
SUB-EDITOR
Deryn Graham
COVER DESIGN
Lauren Mulligan
Cover illustration depicts a quantum computer
LAYOUT AND DESIGN
Nadette Hartzenberg
PRODUCED BY
Wits Communications and the Wits Research Office, Solomon Mahlangu House, Jorissen Street, Braamfontein Campus East, Wits University
Welcome Takunda Chigwende is an archaeologist and heritage conservationist from Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe, who advocates for local communities’ rights to benefit from their cultural heritage. Chigwende employs multifaceted strategies to address heritage conservation and his workshops on Late Stone Age rock art engage both academic and indigenous communities. Holding an MA in Heritage Studies and now a PhD student in Archaeology at Wits, he seeks to enhance community participation in conservation, promote social justice and contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, ensuring equitable socioeconomic benefits from heritage.
YAHYA CHOONARA
Professor Yahya Choonara is internationally recognised as an outstanding pharmaceutical scientist working at the forefront of producing life-saving medicines for infectious, hereditary and lifestyle diseases. He is the South African DSI/NRF Research Chair in Pharmaceutical Sciences and Director of the Wits Advanced Drug Delivery Platform, a flagship research unit and Africa’s only fully integrated platform focused on designing nanomedicine, advanced drug delivery systems, functional biomaterials and regenerative medicines. He has published more than 397 papers in the field with over 16 750 citations and has invented 31 internationally granted patents in the pharmaceutical sciences. In addition, he has mentored and trained more than 121 graduates.
KENNETH CREAMER
Dr Kenneth Creamer is an economist and Senior Lecturer in the School of Economics and Finance at Wits. He has published in local and international academic journals on fiscal policy, monetary policy and energy policy. He serves as a member of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Presidential Economic Advisory Council. He is a Director of Creamer Media and a member of the Management Committee of the South African Student Solidarity Foundation for Education, which provides a platform for inter-generational dialogue and raises funds for tertiary education students in need of support.
ANDREW FORBES
Andrew Forbes is a Distinguished Professor in the School of Physics, where he leads the Structured Light Laboratory. He is Director of South Africa’s Quantum Technology Initiative, which seeks to move South Africa towards its quantum future and WitsQ, a University-wide initiative to grow a local quantum community. His research focuses on tailoring light as both classical and quantum states and their use in diverse applications, from imaging to communication.
GLENDA GRAY
Distinguished Professor Glenda Gray is the Director of the Infectious Diseases and Oncology Research Institute at Wits. She chairs the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership, which works to develop new drugs for antimicrobial resistance. Gray is a Witstrained paediatrician and a clinician scientist working in the field of HIV and HIV vaccines. She was the first female President and CEO of the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC), where she led scientific strategy and the prioritisation of medical research in the country. She remains the Chief Scientific Officer of the SAMRC.
SECHABA MAAPE
Dr Sechaba Maape is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Architecture and Planning and the Director of Afreetekture. An architect, he teaches design and the theory and history of architecture. He also supervises Architecture Master’s students. He focuses on architecture for energyefficient cities and lives in Johannesburg but spends considerable time visiting ritual sites all over the country.
LAURA PEREIRA
Laura Pereira is a Professor in Sustainability Transformations and Futures at Wits’ Global Change Institute. An interdisciplinary sustainability scientist, she trained in ecology, law, zoology and human geography. She is interested in the interface between indigenous and local knowledges and innovation, the role of futures techniques and visioning in enabling transformative change and developing innovative methods for knowledge co-production in the Global
South. She is an Earth Commissioner, co-leading the Transformation Pathways workstream. She sits on the Scenarios and Models Task Force of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.
RACHEL VAN ROOYEN
Rachel van Rooyen is an animator and lectures Animation in Digital Arts in the Wits School of Arts. Her PhD research explores animating memory in the animated documentary format. Her other research includes South African animation practices and the semiotics involved in adapting biblical text into stylised media. She is part of the coordination team for Animation Xchange, an initiative connecting students and industry professionals in the South African animation community. She was a presenter at the Conference of AG Animation in Denmark in 2024.
ANDREW FORBES
GLENDA GRAY
RACHEL VAN ROOYEN
YAHYA CHOONARA
KENNETH CREAMER
SECHABA MAAPE
LAURA PEREIRA
WELCOME TAKUNDA CHIGWENDE
THE EROSION OF TRUST
Poor governance and a weak regulatory framework disrupt public confidence but a dose of healthy democratic scepticism and governance through a gender lens can mitigate an economy of mistrust. @SouthAfricanGov
MARCIA MOYANA
As the world grapples with the dynamic tech environment that shapes public perceptions, trust in governance, public and private institutions, and the media has become topical. As these conversations unfold, researchers caution that trust in public institutions and governance mechanisms will continue to deteriorate if regulatory developments fail to keep up.
Much of the concern stems from the rise of AI and the monetisation of social media content that drives an “attentionseeking economy” and fuels political polarisation and division.
“Governance is at the core of maintaining public trust and this requires decisions that are made by organisations to be inclusive and equitable,” explains Dr Thelela Ngcetane-Vika, a Lecturer in the Wits School of Governance.
Crucial to good governance is leadership that is answerable and accountable for the decisions and actions that it takes, demonstrating a level of transparency that creates an environment in which the public can trust its organisations and institutions.
GENDERED GOVERNANCE
Ngcetane-Vika’s research looks at how gender impacts power dynamics, representation and the distribution of resources within governance systems. She says that gender should be a permanent feature on the agenda of institutions that are serious about good governance, social justice and gender equality. The inclusion of gender in governance will not only reverse past injustices but redefines the face of effective leadership, altering the current systems.
“With the genderisation of governance, a new functional paradigm could emerge to promote truly inclusive organisations, not only through well-written speeches and political rhetoric, but through the intentional implementation of gender equality policies,” she says
The equitable distribution of power through the genderisation of governance is one way through which to restore trust and reduce scepticism – especially in the current climate of misinformation, political polarisation, corporate scandals, malfeasance and devalued ethics.
In South Africa, the failure to address social issues like poverty, unemployment, inequality, healthcare, education disparities and climate change – compounded with high levels of corruption, incompetence and lack of responsiveness to citizens’ concerns – further erodes trust.
RENEGADE RESOURCE-MANAGEMENT
However, a sceptical public that questions any information that is shared by politicians, governance institutions, the media, academia and business, is a sign of a maturing democracy, says Professor Keith Breckenridge from the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER) He explains that trust is tied to resources, where the failure to protect or govern the resources can lead to distrust and scepticism
THE EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION OF POWER THROUGH THE GENDERISATION OF GOVERNANCE IS ONE WAY THROUGH WHICH TO RESTORE TRUST AND REDUCE SCEPTICISM.
TRUST INFRASTRUCTURES
WiSER’s Trust Project interrogates the collapse of public trust. Most recently, its research has been on trust infrastructure, which includes digital tools such as biometric identification systems, predictive machine learning, credit scoring systems, bank account information and geological tools.
“The banking system is an example within the trust infrastructures where trust and mistrust coexist. By emphasising vigilance, banks have created an environment in which their systems are seen to be reliable and trustworthy by users. Mistrust between the central banks, however, is concerning,” explains Breckenridge. He says that if the Chinese and the US central banks mistrust each other, that can create all sorts of problems. This can be seen with the gold price, which has increased more than tenfold since 2001. We have also seen the global economy shake in the last two to three years because of mistrust.”
ECONOMY OF MISTRUST
The emergence of the ‘economy of mistrust’ that incentivises social media users for posting attention-seeking content (that sometimes peddles misinformation) is another concerning issue for Breckenridge.
Better regulation and accountability measures for the likes of Meta, Google and X (formerly Twitter) should be in place to prevent a monopoly in this economy that erodes trust and fuels scepticism created by misinformation, according to Breckenridge.
“If somebody says something that is untrue on these platforms, Meta should share some of the liability, as would be the case for newspapers which, if they publish something that's libelous, are held responsible and the journalist is basically protected,” says Breckenridge.
He concludes that while the expression of democratic scepticism on digital platforms is good, the monopolisation of these spaces should be curbed. C
HOW AFRICA’S QUANTUM TECH COULD REWRITE THE FUTURE
Imagine a world in which quantum technology solves the challenges posed by climate change, where encrypted messages are unhackable and where drugs can be developed by simulating molecules atom-by-atom. Deryn Graham delves into how quantum computing promises this – but also discovers that there is risk to this reward.
World renowned physicist and 1965 joint Nobel prize winner Richard Feynman is often quoted as having said: “I think I can safely say that no one understands quantum mechanics”. Wits Professor Andrew Forbes, however, seems to have more than a reasonable grasp of the subject and his team members have cracked a code to stabilise this fragile technology, positioning Africa as an unexpected leader in the quantum race.
Forbes is a Distinguished Professor in the School of Physics where he established a new laboratory for structured light in 2015. Ten years later, his team has solved the problem that has been holding back quantum computing. That problem is noise.
Naturally, because this is quantum science, noise doesn’t necessarily mean audible noise – it could be light, a dirty window, the weather, or any environmental or atmospheric factor that can disrupt or destabilise the state of entanglement between two particles.
Entanglement is the virtual link by which information can be exchanged across vast distances. As a cornerstone of modern quantum technologies, entanglement is a concept that even Albert Einstein found “spooky”. The basic principle is that two
FORBES AND HIS TEAM ARE THE FIRST IN THE WORLD TO HAVE ENGINEERED A QUANTUM SYSTEM THAT IS ABLE TO IGNORE NOISE.
LAUREN MULLIGAN
particles – however far apart they are – share the same physical states. If you alter the state of the one particle, you automatically alter the state of its “entangled” particle. In this way, you can send information instantly and freely over long distances.
In order for quantum information to flow, the stability of the entanglement needs to be preserved. However, preserving quantum information is a challenge in a noisy world and once disrupted, the entanglement begins to decay and the quantum connection is lost.
Forbes and his team are the first in the world to have engineered a quantum system that is able to ignore noise. By engineering quantum states with specific topological properties, they have managed to preserve quantum information even when the entanglement between particles begins to break down.
“What we’ve found is that topology is a powerful resource for information encoding in the presence of noise. It has a large encoding alphabet that is completely immune to the noise as long as just some entanglement persists,” says Forbes.
This breakthrough could lead to more stable quantum computers and networks, making future technology faster, more secure and widely accessible.
Forbes sees collaboration as the way forward and Wits is working with Huzhou University in China to advance the development of quantum computing. Far from being protective of his groundbreaking discovery, Forbes firmly believes in the value of the collective.
“We can either sit for the next few years and work alone and never make another breakthrough or we can share our knowledge and work with others to get there faster,” says Forbes. The Wits-Huzhou collaboration fuses African innovation with China’s manufacturing scale and is set to challenge the US-EU dominance of quantum technology.
SHAPING THE QUANTUM FUTURE
Now that the genie is out of the proverbial bottle, the question is how we use Forbes’ discovery and the inevitability of quantum computing. In addition to being a prolific physicist, Forbes is also a policy advisor to government and Director of South Arica’s Quantum Roadmap. In order to meet its objectives, it has provided funding for the next five years for quantum projects around the country.
Forbes believes that government’s forward thinking will enable it to deploy science and innovation, including quantum technology, to assist in solving some of the most pressing social issues of our time.
The applications of quantum technology are many and varied. Forbes equates it simplistically to navigating your way through a maze – where traditional
computing offers a choice of left or right at each junction, quantum computing is able to explore both left and right simultaneously. Quantum computing makes it possible to find solutions to highly complex problems in less time and with less hardware than traditional computing. There is no need for more data centres or power guzzling banks of main frame computers. With quantum technology, less is more. Fewer resources, more solutions.
“Quantum computing is especially efficient at solving optimisation problems,” says Dr Isaac Nape, part of Forbes’ team and the first SA Quantum Initiative Emerging Leader. Now, challenges whose solutions have multiple potential outcomes can be analysed using quantum computing and be solved quicker and more accurately than with traditional computing. This might include the development of life saving drugs.
QUANTUM COMPUTING WILL ALSO OFFER SAFER, MORE
SECURE WAYS OF COMMUNICATING, WITH UNHACKABLE ENCRYPTION.
WHY SHOULD WE CARE?
Now, back to today infiltrating just about of our lives – is quantum technology threatening to do the same? Other than governments, should be thinking about how quantum computing will disrupt their industry and how they can adopt and apply quantum technology to protect themselves and not be left behind?
“Through our advisory we’re trying to get quantum technology into discussions at the boardroom Forbes. “We have written a white paper for the financial sector, outlining quantum computing will impact their industry.”
Forbes says that organisation or body that is the custodian of data should be taking notice of quantum computing and how fast it’s developing.
Nape raises concerns around the application of quantum computing particularly in relation to security and privacy. The hypersensitivity quantum technology makes it highly accurate and operable from remote locations.
“China has already developed surveillance equipment that can see up to a distance so we may never know who is watching us at any quantum computing more secure ways of communicating, with unhackable encryption,” says Nape. Using quantum states, quantum communications cannot be intercepted, making it the ultimate in cybersecurity.
WITSQ INITIATIVE
Because of its potential impact on the not only science that is part work of the WitsQ Initiative. It is taking a holistic look at things quantum – research, innovation, business, education, outreach and ethics.
“Currently, no one is taking responsibility for the ethical considerations around quantum computing and so this has to be into our development,” Forbes. To this end, his unit is also working with the University’s School of Law to consider how quantum technology may be regulated and legislated.
However it is managed, quantum technology will create a new quantum economy requiring a trained workforce and this is part of government’s strategic objectives sector. Although not everyone will be directly involved with computing, Forbes makes a comparison with the smart phone “Techpreneurs didn’t need to build smart phones to be part of phone economy. Many built apps and other platforms that run on smart phones and were brought economy that way. This is how people will become involved in technology.”
moment, all the research and development in the commercialisation of quantum computing is being conducted companies such as IBM, but benefitting. Wits is the first African Q Network, giving the University access to a 50-qubit quantum computer and seed funding. This is enabling the University to drive quantum technologies and position itself as the leading quantum institution on the continent.
The reward versus risk equation means that in the wrong hands, quantum computing can easily decrypt digital information stored on traditional networks, potentially exposing masses of sensitive personal and corporate information.
Personally, I’m with Richard Feynman, but under the brilliant stewardship of Professor Andrew Forbes, Wits is blazing a trail in the world of quantum computing and communications, putting South Africa firmly on the quantum map. C
WHERE WE MIND HUMANS AS MUCH AS CODE
In a world dictated by data, scale and speed, the MIND Institute prioritises the human being.
TAMSIN MACKAY UNSPLASH/ALI
The Machine Intelligence and Neural Discovery (MIND) Institute at Wits University is reclaiming space for humans, not as users or productivity metrics but as whole, complex beings. The Institute’s researchers come from the fields of philosophy, neuroscience, ethics, media studies, architecture and engineering and they bring nuance and story to the machinery of artificial intelligence (AI).
Where global giants speak of alignment and efficiency, members of the MIND Institute speak of trust, emotion, ethics, cosmology and care. The interdisciplinary community is focused on ensuring that people are not forgotten in the rush to innovate.
“Technology is all human artefact so I’m not fully on board with the idea that technology has gotten away from humans,” says Martin Bekker, Lecturer in the School of Electrical and Information Engineering at Wits. “However, we are asking if the applications of AI are good. Are they making us better, kinder and more effective? Or are they just new toys with unexpected downsides?”
ETHICAL ARCHAEOLOGY
Bekker’s dual work in AI ethics and protest prediction shows both the promise and pitfalls of AI. He sees his work at the MIND Institute as a form of ethical archaeology which uncovers and questions the hidden assumptions that shape how AI is built and used. There is a need to refocus conversations, he says, towards what he calls “value elicitation”–discovering what machines prioritise and asking if these reflect human values.
This theme of quiet, persistent interrogation is reflected in how Dr Mary Carman, a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Wits, perceives the value of the MIND Institute – which is in creating space for disciplines to challenge each other meaningfully.
“It’s quite difficult to have other disciplines take each other seriously, especially for harder sciences to take an ethicist seriously,” she says. “However, the MIND Institute creates a forum where we are all equal contributors.”
This is essential as these so-called ‘harder’ disciplines are taking the front seat in technology and innovation. This concern is reflected in how engineers might explore solutions for robotic care and in how humanities scholars might pose the uncomfortable and important question: “Why are we trying to solve this problem with a robot?”
Ethical progress is not a matter of coding better decisions into AI. Rather, it is also about choosing whether a specific solution is appropriate at all. After all, looking after frail and sick people is challenging
but if humanity chooses the robot, then is it also choosing a less ethical path?
ALTERNATIVE COSMOLOGIES
For Professor Iginio Gagliardone from Media Studies, who has worked extensively in media technology and decolonial thought, the project of reclaiming human meaning in technology begins with widening the lens. He suggests that many of today’s dominant narratives about intelligence and ethics, especially in AI, are bound to Euro-American histories and assumptions.
At the MIND Institute, he is exploring how African cosmologies could offer alternatives.
“Traditional, pre-colonial African cosmologies accommodate both the human and the non-human and may offer more meaningful ways of thinking about how we coexist with intelligent systems,” he says.
There is an urgency in the resistance to the most powerful voices in technology and the need to ensure that the rest of the world has a say in shaping what comes next.
The MIND Institute is not a laboratory or a think tank. Instead, it brings together vastly different disciplines and allows for friction to do the work. “Big disruption is actually going to be in the impact that these conversations have on our choices and what we do with our research,” says Carman.
In a culture wired for speed and scale, the MIND Institute’s approach is measured, dialogic and human. It does not offer shortcuts or certainty but it is a space that allows people to think, feel and imagine differently and ultimately to centre people at the heart of technology.
The Machine Intelligence and Neural Discovery Institute at Wits University is an African-based interdisciplinary AI research hub that pushes the frontiers of the scientific understanding of machine, human and animal intelligence. Led by Prof. Benjamin Rosman, it focuses on fundamental AI research that promotes breakthrough scientific discoveries and aims to grow a much-needed critical mass of AI expertise on the continent. Through robust interdisciplinary collaborations, the MIND Institute partners with industry and others to develop cutting-edge technologies tailored to Africa’s unique challenges. It also addresses how AI interfaces with society from an ethical and policy perspective, shaping governance and ensuring that AI development is safe, inclusive and beneficial to all.
Read more at wits.ai.
MIND
D S N O I PT U R S i 5
The Machine Intelligence and Neural Discovery (MIND) Institute at Wits University is an African-based interdisciplinary AI research hub that pushes the frontiers of the scientific understanding of machine, human and animal intelligence. MIND Fellows highlight disruptions they anticipate.
1. DECOLONISING INTELLIGENCE THROUGH AFRICAN COSMOLOGIES
Professor Iginio Gagliardone asks: “What if the future of AI lies behind us and in the philosophies that we forgot to remember?” He believes that one of the most important ideas emerging from MIND is that African cosmologies may offer a deeper, more human framework for understanding AI than the dominant models created in Silicon Valley or scripture.
Where non-Abrahamic traditions struggle to make space for non-human sentience, African pre-colonial systems of thought embrace the interconnectedness of all beings – animate, inanimate, human or machine. Within these ontologies, AI isn’t a threat or a tool but something that is ‘in relation to’, something to be lived with, rather than by which to be dominated.
“Use the past to find frameworks that let us coexist with machines instead of fearing or worshipping them. African cosmologies could provide a better framework that accommodates both the human and the non-human. At a time when many of the people building this technology have dystopic, unhuman visions, we need alternatives,” he says.
2. CHALLENGING THE FIXATION OF TECHNOLOGY AS A SOLUTION
Sometimes one of the most powerful ways to disrupt the status quo is to ask a question: “Why are we solving this problem with technology?”
Dr Mary Carman is asking what motivates code in the first place? Take the example of care robots – machines designed to alleviate loneliness or used in the stead of humans. Carman looks beyond the rise of these tools and questions why more people are lonely in the first place and why humans are so quick to outsource care?
“These robots might help but we need to ask if they are they making us less ethical if we hand over work to them that makes us deeply human?” she questions.
3. USING ETHICS AS A MIRROR
4. LEVERAGING INTERDISCIPLINARY DOUBT
For Dr Mary Carman, the role of different disciplines in listening to one another is invaluable. Intellectual discomfort means troubling assumptions and asking questions that challenge the prestige of technology.
“Sometimes, the disruption you’re working on is a wonderful project, but there is value in someone questioning whether you should be doing it in the first place and in their having the courage to say it,” says Carman. “
In a space increasingly ruled by velocity, this is a slow, human pause that has the potential to change research direction and remind its makers what really matters.
Ethics, says Dr Martin Bekker, are too often seen as the seatbelt that stops innovation from crashing but it can also be a mirror and a way to reflect on what is happening before it is too late to turn back. He is building ways to ‘elicit values’ from AI models to gain a deeper understanding of them. By feeding large language models morally complex scenarios and observing their choices, he’s asking what the AI really values. “Is it life? Utility? Fairness? Age? Autonomy? This approach doesn’t scold the machine, it focuses on making the AI’s reasoning visible so that we can interrogate it and also our own assumptions,” says Bekker. The goal is to find clarity in a world where humans have also become untethered from shared moral anchors.
5. PREDICTING PROTEST WITH COMPASSION
Dr Martin Bekker’s second disruption sits between heavy data and deeply human concepts. Drawing from 17 years of South African police records, he built an AI model to predict the frequency of public protest, and the results are fascinating. Patterns emerged that could forecast unrest years in advance.
For Bekker, however, it is less a victory for surveillance and more of a wake-up call: “Once you can predict protest, you have to ask what we are measuring and more importantly what we are doing with this knowledge.”
RISING FROM GLOBAL DISRUPTION
South Africa’s constitutional principles set us apart from the rest of the world, providing us with a foundation that enables us to navigate a disrupted world.
BRIDGET HILTON-BARBER
In the swirling chaos of our disrupted world - where climate crises collide with technological revolutions, where democracy battles authoritarianism on multiple fronts –South Africa stands at a crossroads that could define the next two decades of its existence.
The question is not whether the world will continue to convulse with change. It will. The question is whether South Africa can harness these very disruptions that are fracturing other nations and forge them into the foundation of something unprecedented: a more equal, more prosperous nation that finally fulfills the promise of its post-apartheid constitution.
"If we can come together and find a way to answer in the affirmative then it is likely that a new, more equal and prosperous South African nation can arise in the next 20
years," says Dr Kenneth Creamer from Wits' School of Economics and Finance.
The stakes have never been higher – or the opportunity more tangible.
THREE DISRUPTIONS, ONE MOMENT
While other nations stumble under the weight of global transformation, South Africa finds itself uniquely positioned to navigate what Creamer identifies as three interconnected disruptions reshaping our world: the energy transition towards lower-cost, lower-carbon power; the digital revolution driven by artificial intelligence and a geopolitical realignment that's redrawing the map of global influence.
"Change is constantly present but sometimes the rate of
change accelerates and it is such a period that is currently underway,” explains Creamer.
Each disruption carries both peril and promise for South Africa. The energy transition could accelerate the country's move away from coal dependency while creating new industries. The digital revolution might leapfrog traditional economic barriers but it could also deepen inequality. Geopolitical shifts offer opportunities for new partnerships across Africa and beyond, yet risk alienating traditional allies.
The challenge is integration – weaving these transitions together in a way that creates jobs rather than destroys them, that builds bridges rather than walls.
A WORLD IN CHAOS
The global context makes South Africa's moment even more remarkable. Professor Alex van den Heever, Chair of Social Security Systems Administration at Wits' School of Governance, paints a stark picture: "The USA remains unstable, China is stronger than ever, Russia is the great destabiliser and Europe is in the corner".
America, once the beacon of democratic stability, finds itself consumed by what Prof. van den Heever calls "a form of craziness" that previous checks and balances would have prevented. He says that the change in the USA’s relationship to the rest of the world and South Africa has been a long time coming. Since the events of 9/11, the situation in the USA has been fraught and is creating chaos, both internally and in global relations. It’s related to the considered attacks on democracy and is essentially their form of state capture driven by the Heritage Foundation, the Republican conservative think tank.”
The Heritage Foundation leads Project 2025, an extensive plan that includes appointing ideologically aligned civil servants, restricting abortion access, opposing LGBTQIA+ rights, transforming federal agencies for political purposes and imposing strict immigration policies. “It is uncertain as to whether they will succeed – but they are trying,” says Prof. van den Heever.
Meanwhile, cheap high-tech weapons are changing the nature of warfare, as evidenced in the Ukraine’s longrange drone attacks deep inside Russia. Social media has weaponised information, making truth itself a casualty of political manipulation. Technology-driven consolidation concentrates wealth and power in fewer hands.
"We are in an era characterised by a massive struggle between democracy and authoritarianism," says John Stremlau, Honorary Professor of International Relations at Wits. "The outcome is uncertain."
THE SOUTH AFRICAN ADVANTAGE
Yet in this global chaos, South Africa possesses something increasingly rare: a Constitution that enshrines the very principles that other nations are abandoning.
"The aspects that Trump is trying to erode are enshrined in our very own Constitution and South Africa is reaffirming its basic principles," says Stremlau.
This is not mere idealism. South Africa's commitment to non-aligned but principled foreign relations has earned the
country international respect. It’s emphasis on equality over sovereignty provides a moral foundation that could attract new partnerships as other nations retreat into nationalist isolation.
The country's experience with transition – from apartheid to democracy – has created institutional knowledge around managing profound change. It’s position as Africa's most developed economy, combined with it’s constitutional commitment to equality, offers a unique platform for leadership.
THE CRITICAL QUESTIONS
Principles alone won't secure the future. South Africa faces concrete challenges that will determine whether this moment becomes a launchpad or a missed opportunity.
Can the country integrate energy, digital and geopolitical transitions into economic policies that create jobs rather than eliminate them? Can it build new African and global partnerships without alienating historical trading partners? Can it overcome the legacy of apartheid while navigating the complexities of a multipolar world?
"These global disruptions present a particular set of challenges, opportunities and questions to be answered for South Africa, still suffering in the long shadow of apartheid and gamely trying to find its feet as a constitutional democracy," observes Creamer.
The answers will require more than government action. They demand what Stremlau calls "agency, community-led governance and decentralised adaptive solutions to shared global challenges like climate change, displacement and resource scarcity".
A NATION'S CHOICE
History rarely offers such clear moments of possibility Stremlau quotes the 20th Century scholar, Arnold Toynbee who said: "History is one damn thing after another". Stremlau explains: “The disrupted global world order is not the end of history – it is just that we are in a state of great flux.”
Sometimes those "damn things" can align to create unprecedented opportunity.
South Africa's choice is stark: it can allow global disruptions to deepen existing fractures or it can use them as raw material for reconstruction. It can retreat into the comfort of familiar problems or step forward into the uncertainty of transformative solutions.
"If South Africa can weather its many domestic problems, while carrying out enviable non-aligned but principled foreign relations, perhaps the USA can get beyond ‘King Donald’,” suggests Stremlau. “South Africa's success could model possibilities for other struggling democracies.”
The disrupted world order is not the end of history. It is the beginning of whatever comes next. South Africa, with its hardwon wisdom about transition, its constitutional commitment to equality and its strategic position in a changing world has the chance to help write that next chapter.
Stremlau reminds us that the struggles to build democracy are endless. However, endless does not mean hopeless. Sometimes disruption creates the very conditions that democracy needs to flourish. C
WASTE TO WONDER: HOW CASHEW NUT SHELLS COULD HELP AFRICA MAKE ITS OWN VACCINES
Chemists and scientists are engineering a next-generation vaccine from a surprising and humble source.
BETH AMATO LAUREN MULLIGAN
As the US pulls the funding rug out from under African countries fighting infectious diseases, it is more necessary than ever for Africa to make its own medicine.
Health inequity began long before 2025 and it is more critical now that innovation for accessible healthcare be ‘home-grown’. An unexpected opportunity emanating from this public health crisis comes in the form of the shell of the humble cashew nut, which is widely farmed across Africa. Cashew nut shells are also waste products, so their use for various industrial and medical applications does not compete with any other applications.
HOW IT WORKS
This C-shaped nut and the oil extracted from its discarded shell can easily be converted into hydrogenated cardanol. A few simple synthetic steps are then followed to make ionisable lipids, which can be custom-designed and assembled as lipid nanoparticles to carry encapsulated messenger RNA (mRNA) in a vaccine, triggering an immune response.
This magic trick can be decoded as follows: Instead of giving your body part of a virus, as was done traditionally, you get a small piece of genetic code (mRNA), wrapped up in a protective bubble (in this case, the lipid nanoparticle made from cashew nutshell oil). This then instructs your cells to
produce a harmless piece of the virus or an antigen so that the immune system recognises the protein as foreign and mounts an immune response. The protein is only briefly produced by your own cells. It is a temporary instruction sheet. If the actual virus ever shows up, the immune system is trained to defeat it.
WHY mRNA VACCINES MATTER
These mRNA vaccines can be produced more quickly than traditional vaccines because it is cell-free and a large number of doses can be manufactured in small facilities. This is a game-changer for Africa, making it possible for the African Union to achieve its target of producing 60% of the continent’s vaccines regionally by 2040. Currently, Africa produces only 1% of the vaccines it uses and even then, this is still under a foreign patent for which the continent pays enormous licensing fees.
Professor Patrick Arbuthnot, Director of the South African Medical Research Council’s Antiviral Gene Therapy Research Unit (AGTRU) at Wits, says that the pandemic highlighted the need for scalable vaccine platforms, particularly in South Africa. Arbuthnot and his team quickly pivoted their gene therapy research to prioritise mRNA vaccine discovery.
TURNING WASTE INTO MEDICAL GOLD
Together with the Wits School of Chemistry, the AGTRU secured a R7-million grant to develop vaccine-enabling compounds derived from cashew nutshell liquid.
“Traditional vaccine production is an arduous and timeconsuming process. We have discovered that our lipids can be made at a fraction of the price and are as effective as the lipid molecule’s ‘gold standard’ [SM102] used by Moderna in their Covid-19 vaccines,” explains Dr Robin Klintworth, a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Wits School of Chemistry.
According to Professor Charles de Koning, the Head of the Wits School of Chemistry, “We see that these lipids can indeed deliver delicate genetic material safely and flexibly.
Cashew nutshell oil-derived lipids are made in a more sustainable manner than petrochemical-based lipids currently on the market [such as the SM102] and used in mRNA vaccines. Indeed, some of our ionisable lipids have induced a
similar immune response to the Moderna lipid SM102.”
Previously, de Koning and his team of chemists previously found a way to turn the same chemical building block derived from cashew nut shells – hydrogenated cardanol – into a class of compounds known as triazines that filter harmful UV rays from the sun. This could be a potential ingredient in sunscreen products.
mRNA’S EXPANDING FRONTIER
“The beauty of this discovery is that it is flexible – the team can alter the mRNA code to tackle other viruses,” says Arbuthnot.
This is where Dr Kristie Bloom from the AGTRU weighs in. This next-generation vaccine team leader is using mRNA technology to create a prophylactic (disease-preventing) vaccine in the fight against tuberculosis (TB).
“It seems that the pursuit of these next-generation mRNA vaccines, which were previously seen as the poor cousins of vaccinology, may activate the T-cells needed to fight TB. We have two TB prophylactic candidates currently in advanced discovery and product development stages,” she says.
While the BCG vaccine is administered to infants as a preventative measure against TB, protection decreases in adolescence. TB incidence, therefore, remains endemic in South Africa, with TB deaths remaining high. The World Health Organization (WHO) noted that TB has “catastrophic” costs for affected households. The WHO’s End TB strategy is a blueprint for countries to achieve 80% fewer new cases of TB, 90% fewer deaths and to eliminate the suffering of TB-affected households by 2030.
TOWARDS A HEALTH-EQUITABLE FUTURE
A new TB vaccine is urgent and necessary but has been elusive until now.
“The discovery of the discarded cashew nutshell oil and its transformation into ionisable lipids as an important part of the mRNA vaccine delivery system is one of the ways we can strengthen the continent’s future pandemic preparedness and response capabilities. This will enhance the continent’s vaccine sovereignty and ultimately, health security and equity,” says Arbuthnot. C
A chemical engineer intends to revolutionise the nature of agriculture.
SHAUN SMILLIE
For thousands of years humans have farmed and manipulated a handful of crops that now dominate the agricultural landscape and feed the majority of the planet’s population.
Through this evolution has emerged monoculture agriculture, where a single crop is grown year after year – most of them under the strict control of large international companies who manage access to the seeds and fertilisers. While monoculture agriculture is profitable and for the moment highly productive, the effect it has on the environment means that it is unsustainable.
To continue to feed the world’s population and even provide new energy sources, we need a new agricultural revolution, believes Dr Shehzaad Kauchali. This revolution will be built on plant species which were ignored by our ancestors thousands of years ago.
BREACHING THE SILOS
Kauchali supervises the Master’s programme in Clean Energy and Sustainable Technologies in the Wits School of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, so why is he calling for an agricultural revolution?
“I'm a chemical engineer sitting in an engineering department trying to solve the energy problem, but I came to realise that we may be able to design a solution that can satisfy most of our needs – including food, energy and water security which are all interconnected – at the same time as conserving the environment,” he explains.
Kauchali is calling for a move to replace monoculture with perennial polyculture farming using a variety of perennial crop species to restore ecosystems and enhance biodiversity.
ON A KNIFE EDGE
Perennial plants, whose lifecycles extend over several years, are more resilient than annual monoculture crops and because they are hardier, they are more likely to deal with the growing threat of climate change.
In South Africa, we are already facing serious agricultural challenges. The country is currently losing arable land to erosion and drought and climate change threatens to collapse the nation’s agricultural industry in the not too distant future.
Using the Lengau supercomputer at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research's (CSIR) Centre for High Performance Computing, Professor Francois Engelbrecht from
the Wits Global Change Institute has identified a tipping point – an event that will cause irreversible changes to South Africa’s climate system. This tipping point would be the collapse of the maize industry caused by a series of prolonged droughts that may occur over the next two decades.
BACK TO THE FUTURE
Drought resistant perennial crops would fare better during these periods of water scarcity and across the globe researchers are looking for these plants and working on creating hybrid perennial crop species.
“What they are trying to do is find a distant cousin perennial and then go into a hybridisation programme,” explains Kauchali.
One such crop scientists are working on is Kernza, a relative of wheat that has a deep root system, which can be used for baking, cooking and beer brewing. In South Africa, sorghum is a candidate crop because it is drought resistant and has a long agricultural history.
The problem is that for now, many of these perennial plants don't have the yields of annual crops. However, they can help power the future through the production of oil and biodiesel and also act as carbon-sinks and restore biodiversity to marginal, non-arable land.
Fields of castor beans spanning 130 kilometres across – approximately the distance between Johannesburg and
eMalahleni, in Mpumalanga - could produce enough biodiesel to power Eskom’s open cycle gas turbines which can consume as much as nine million litres of diesel a day, believes Kauchali.
“Imagine how finding a perennial-hybridised version of castor that can grow on marginal lands, requiring less water, fertilizer and pesticides could change our lives,” says Kauchali.
BREAKING MONOPOLIES
There is another advantage to the perennial polycultural revolution and that is the restoration of autonomy to farmers who would no longer be beholden to the global seed monopolies which require them not only to repeatedly purchase the seeds of patented annual crop varieties, but also fertilisers and pesticides.
Wes Jackson, a pioneer in the development of perennial grains, believed it would take half a century for the world to adopt this new way of farming, but it could take less time than that, according to Kauchali – perhaps only a decade or two – if AI is used, the government gets behind it and the necessary funding is found.
However the biggest obstacle could be unwiring a mindset that has evolved over millennia and weaning us off crops that are now harming ecosystems.
“We need to convince farmers that there is a better way of doing things,” says Kauchali. C
YOU WANT TO SAVE THE PLANET?
Lifestyle
changes will be of more benefit in the fight against climate change than industrialised solutions such as electric vehicles.
ED STODDARD LAUREN MULLIGAN
As the just energy transition gathers pace, dousing the flames of hydrocarbon-fuelled climate change, one thing is clear – we are entering an age of mass disruption, calling for a radical re-evaluation of how economies are organised.
Researchers at Wits, including Professor Laura Pereira from the Global Change Institute are at the forefront of academic advocacy, thinking about issues such as how to provide equitable outcomes that protect a fragile global environment while ensuring that access to resources and capital flows is more evenly spread.
"It's getting into that cognitive space of actually appreciating what these breaks from the current status quo could look like. There is also an imagination and creativity component to that, so there is a lot of disruptive work happening," says Pereira.
As the world's poorest continent and the region most
vulnerable to climate change that is caused by economic activities in the Global North, Africa is at the coal face of this disruption.
"We have been doing some interesting research into finance and investment flows, particularly on the African continent. The majority is still going into what we call nature eroding activities that undermine the biophysical, biosphere base or the people associated with that – things like mining, deforestation or extensive agriculture. It's not going into nature-supporting activities which would be investing in socioecological enterprises," says Pereira.
Pereira was the lead author of a 2024 article in the peerreviewed journal Copernicus exploring the concept of "tipping points" which can "... lead to abrupt, irreversible, and dangerous impacts with serious implications for humanity". The article also looked at the need for equity and justice to underpin the discourse and policies around this issue.
TENSE TRADE-OFFS
One of the article's case studies looks at the tension between the rise in the popularity of electric vehicles (EVs) which will lead to a reduction in fossil fuel consumption and the exploitative practices used to extract the metals that their batteries require.
"While EVs may have the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, their batteries currently rely on minerals such as lithium, cobalt and nickel, the extraction of which has considerable and frequently devastating social and environmental impacts in the Global South," the study reveals.
The growing need for these minerals has led to the ruthless exploitation of artisanal miners in places such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as widespread environmental degradation which undermines the biosphere base for future generations.
"Despite being framed under 'green transition' discourses, these corporatised transitions tend to follow a mineral intensive pathway that increases demand for critical raw materials with the socioecological impacts of mining largely being overlooked, despite driving significant environmental conflicts."
Pereira and her co-researchers suggest ways to address this imbalance including limiting private EV ownership in favour of large-scale public transport to achieve "a more equitable, just and even profitable solution.”
"This would require a change in mindset and lifestyle for those who are currently responsible for the most consumption but it would benefit more people and provide improved access to transport with less of a burden on raw materials," says Pereira.
Professor Imraan Valodia, Pro Vice-Chancellor: Climate, Sustainability and Inequality at Wits notes that there are also opportunities for Africa's green mineral wealth to be processed on the continent rather than exported raw, which robs the region of value.
"The sense from our research is that mineral beneficiation is a big opportunity for Africa," he concludes. C
The Covid-19 pandemic disrupted science and society with devastating effect, but it also ignited the innovation and imagination that we will need to confront future pandemics.
The Covid-19 pandemic revealed this truth: humans are mortal – but they will also organise, strategise and fight to survive. Now, five years since the world was changed forever by Covid19, the questions, insights and strategies on how to shape impactful scientific research and innovation in preparation for what comes next, is drawing on lessons from a unique moment of disruption on the human timeline.
OPPORTUNITIES IN CRISES
Professor Glenda Gray is Director of Wits’ Infectious Diseases and Oncology Research Institute (IDORI). She was President and CEO of the South African Medical Research Council for 10 years until 2024 and is no stranger to disruption of the most devastating kind. In the 1980s, Gray, a paediatrician and clinician-researcher, turned her professional focus to the impact of the raging HIV pandemic. Each year in South Africa it was killing tens of thousands of people without access to lifesaving antiretrovirals, including mothers and their children.
It was a moment of brokenness and despair, but for Gray, mobilising scientific research held hope. Research was the key to a deeper understanding and building evidence in the fight to find solutions to the crisis. It was also a way to bolster clear-sighted advocacy for patients. In 1991, she and Prof. James McIntyre founded the Perinatal HIV Research Unit, based at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital in Soweto.
Fast-forward to the present day and Gray reflects on the lessons learnt from the convergence of HIV, tuberculosis and Covid-19. The pandemic was distinct in how it bought the world to a standstill, rewriting the rules for almost everything overnight including scientific research and its responses.
CROSS-DISCIPLINARY COLLABORATION
As the Covid-19 death toll rose in 2020 and 2021 and a way out of the pandemic seemed uncertain, scientific endeavour showed it could step up. Scientists could switch gears and shrink timeframes to develop and test vaccines. Their manufacture and distribution worldwide could be realised at volume, with speed and with extensive coverage. Money and resources could be found and politicians could play ball.
“What we've learned from the pandemic is the need for interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary research,” says Gray. “We now know that when we put clinicians together with vaccinologists or virologists, or immunologists or epidemiologists, we do much better. We understand the disease much better and we respond much better.”
She says that the scientific community used the Covid-19 moment to build trust within its ranks.
“Covid helped us think about how we could work with and across disciplines quickly and efficiently. It taught us to come out of our comfort zones, forge new partnerships and new research strategies.”
FROM TB TO COVID-19
Dr Christopher Ealand, a Senior Researcher at the Centre of Excellence for Biomedical Tuberculosis (TB) Research, says that the Covid-19 pandemic showed how researchers and scientists could apply their expertise to tackle challenges outside of their research disciplines.
The unprecedented disruption of Covid-19 also showed researchers that they could work while adapting to extreme – even bizarre – new circumstances. Ealand recalls how “intense and busy” their TB laboratories, designed for research with dangerous pathogens were at the time but this contrasted starkly to the eerily silent world of lockdown outside.
“Early on in the pandemic I realised that our TB labs had the ability to create Covid-19 vaccine controls to verify that the diagnostic tests were working because we already had those controls for TB,” says Ealand. “ This pivot, from TB to Covid-19, made all the difference at a time when control test kits were not accessible and the race against the clock was critical,” he says.
COMMUNICATION AND CARE
Ealand highlights two other critical lessons that was learnt from Covid-19. The first was that scientists needed to be better communicators. This was especially critical in a time of social media-fuelled disinformation and distrust in science.
“Covid made it clear to me that we as scientists and researchers have to be champions of science – we have to make it relatable, have conversations with people around us and give them the right information or they will turn to things like Facebook,” he says.
Ealand’s second point is that we need to be wide awake to the inequalities that prop up the world. Covid19 made it patently clear that even as there was a collective scramble to stop the spread of the pandemic and end the global crisis, it came down to a push to the front of the queue. It was true for vaccines, personal protective equipment and even for toilet paper when
WHAT WE'VE LEARNED FROM THE PANDEMIC IS THE NEED FOR INTERDISCIPLINARY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH.
Intergovernmental Negotiating Body and the Director of the Health Regulatory Science Platform, a division of the Wits Health Consortium. She also served as Director General in the Department of Health from 2010 to 2019.
In mid-April 2025, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body finalised a proposal for the WHO Pandemic Agreement. Three years in the making, it is the guiding document to prevent, prepare and collaborate as new pandemics lurk.
Matsoso says that the “complex and demanding 1 200 hours it took to get to the draft zero” speak to the long road to reaching negotiated agreements. “It’s the need to hear more perspectives, to consider individual countries’ circumstances, sociocultural distinctions and resource differences and to compromise, find common ground and maybe also apply common sense on how to deal with future pandemics,” she says.
there were misreported shortages of supermarket items.
This inequality in research applies even to TB research, Ealand argues. TB is still considered a disease of the poor and can quickly move down priority lists. TB is simply not as relatable to people in less vulnerable populations as a global pandemic that affects everyone.
“TB has been with humans since ancient times - it was here during Covid and it will still be with us in the future. If you neglect it, it spreads. People need to understand that TB research and breakthroughs that come from South Africa or wherever else, benefit everybody globally Diseases like Covid and TB are not confined by human borders,” he says.
TB continues to take a massive toll on South Africa.
According to World Health Organization (WHO) data, in 2023 an estimated 56 000 people died of TB in this country. Globally, 1.25 million people died from the disease in the same year. TB and HIV infection track closely together and South Africa has a high HIV burden with Stats SA estimating that about 8 million people were living with HIV in 2024.
INEVITABLE PANDEMIC PREPARATION
It is clear that being at the frontline of HIV and TB research helped the Wits researchers to adapt quickly to the challenge that Covid-19 posed. It also helped South Africa and the world to mitigate the impact that the pandemic had globally, even though the number of deaths associated directly or indirectly with Covid-19 stood at an estimated 14.9 million people worldwide between 1 January 2020 and 31 December 2021.
Unfortunately, according to Dr Precious Matsoso, the Covid-19 pandemic was not the last that we will see now. Matsoso is Co-Chair of the World Health Organization’s
CAPACITATE THE KNOWLEDGE BASE
“However, many universities have established strong foundations coming out of Covid-19,” explains Matsoso. This was seen clearly in the prominent role that scientists played on government advisory committees or in their media engagement with the public.
“We do have a knowledge base because we have built the right capacity over many years. We also have scientists who use their voices. What is important now is investments in institutions to build more capacity and to have platforms where knowledge transfer can happen,” says Matsoso.
“Government must also realise that South Africa has globally respected experts, like those from Wits and even though advice must be weighed up against many things, we need leaders who recognise good advice and act on it. We also need to bring our institutions of learning closer to the policy process so that we can have better implementation of the work that universities are doing.”
This winter, the WHO member states will meet to consider the Pandemic Agreement. At the five-year mark after Covid-19, governments must be ready to put pandemic strategies in place. Likewise, health and medical scientists and researchers must be ready to respond if everyone living through the next
REROUTING MENTAL
Africa is home to the world’s most diverse genome research which holds potential for precision medicine and revolutionising mental health diagnostics and
treatment on the continent.
BETH AMATO LAUREN MULLIGAN
After her close friend died by suicide in 2022, Dr Vivien Chebii, a postdoctoral researcher at the Sydney Brenner Institute for Molecular Bioscience (SBIMB), switched her genetic research work from livestock to mental health. She’d experienced firsthand the wrecked lives left in the wake of this tragic and most times, avoidable loss.
In Africa, where an estimated 116 million people live with mental illness, the losses mount. One of the reasons is the dearth of information about the unique causes of mental illness amongst Africans.
Most of what we know about the genetic causes of mental illness, its diagnostic tools and the safety and efficacy of treatment options, has been studied predominantly in European populations. This is despite Africa being home to the richest and most diverse human genome.
Research into African genetics and disease profiles and the potential of precision medicine is growing exponentially worldwide.
“If you have more information about the African genome, it benefits all populations. What we are beginning to discover about genetic variants in diseases in African populations is a major leap in genetic science and public health,” says Prof. Michèle Ramsay, Director of the SBIMB.
DRUGS AFFECT AFRICAN POPULATIONS DIFFERENTLY
Senior Scientist at the SBIMB, Prof. Collen Masimirembwa’s discovery of a genetic variation in African populations revealed that the side effects of the HIV drug Efavirenz (EFV) – which include rashes, depression and suicidal tendencies – were worse for Africans than patients on a standard dose, determined using European genomic data.
Masimirembwa found that many Zimbabwean and Botswanan individuals have a genetic variant that increases the metabolism of EFV, rendering the standard dose toxic for them. Following this discovery, lower doses resulted in increased compliance and improved viral control. In Botswana, genomic studies that showed that about 13.5% of the population would be unable to effectively utilise EFV-based therapies, lead to a change in the country’s HIV management policy in favour of the drug Dolutegravir.
“We uncovered the genetic reasons for these responses and therefore advocated for the need to consider Africa’s genomic diversity in the clinical development of new medicines and policies. This improves health systems significantly,” says Masimirembwa.
In the wake of her friend’s suicide, Chebii was also contending
AFRICA ACCOUNTS FOR AROUND 10% OF THE GLOBAL BURDEN
OF MENTAL DISORDERS.
HEALTH IN AFRICA
with how mental disorders co-occur in Africa with other diseases, such as hypertension and diabetes. Many people who are being treated for HIV and TB also have hypertension and other cardiometabolic disorders. Could it be that they share the same genetic pathways? Understanding this could help determine whether the various medications are working together effectively.
THE GENETICS OF DEPRESSION IN AFRICA
Research shows that postpartum complications, ageing, imprisonment, unwanted pregnancy, cardiovascular diseases, HIV, drug abuse and conflicts make up the main risk factors for depression in sub-Saharan Africa. However, mental illness is a complex interplay between environmental factors and genetics and so Chebii and 20 researchers from across South Africa, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Malawi and the UK who are members of the Depression Genetics in Africa consortium (DepGenAfrica) are trying to unravel the genetics of depression in more than 10 000 individuals.
“To our dismay we find that, unlike in other areas of health research, critical diagnostics, including screening tools, neuroimaging equipment and genetic research facilities, are prohibitively expensive for scientists and clinicians working in Africa,” says Chebii.
Yet, the World Health Organization’s (WHO)s 2017 Global Health Estimate reports that Africa accounts for around 10% of the global burden of mental disorders. However, the figures are likely understated due to widespread misdiagnosis, underdiagnosis and gaps in data.
Chebii says, “Scientists in African countries already struggle because of inadequate funding, insufficient research infrastructure, a shortage of researchers and lengthy waiting times for ethical approval. It’s high time that the world took steps to combat these inequities.”
NEW FRONTIERS IN DRUG DELIVERY
More homegrown solutions are emerging in Africa. Wits University is building Africa’s first comprehensive genomic
database and simultaneously developing targeted drug delivery technologies that are patient-centric and designed for African healthcare settings.
The Wits Advanced Drug Delivery Platform (WADDP) is actively researching innovative nanomedicines for treating depression, psychosis and a range of neurological diseases.
“The treatments for such diseases are often inadequate, mainly due to the restrictive blood-brain barrier. We are trying to fill the innovation gap. Nanotechnology provides many promising solutions to counter the challenges in conventional neurotherapy,” says Professor Yahya Choonara, the Director of the Platform.
“Traditional oral or injectable drugs, currently also the only two ways available for patients to take the medication, circulate throughout the body, not just the brain,” says Choonara. Furthermore, medication – especially some classes of antidepressants – can take weeks to show benefits. This slow relief and other side effects make patients more likely to stop their treatment.”
TAILORED AND TARGETED TREATMENT
In response, Choonara and his team have patented a delivery device that uses a ‘melt-dispersion’ technique to deliver antipsychotic medication such as chlorpromazine to the brain via nanocapsules in a system that is both effective and biodegradable. The nanocapsules are delivered to the brain’s frontal lobe using an implant for targeted delivery. When tested in the lab, the nanocapsules successfully delivered the psychiatric medication to the brain over an extended period and demonstrated minimal toxicity to brain-like cells.
“This system shows strong potential for long-term, site-specific treatment of psychiatric disorders, reducing the need for frequent dosing and improving patient outcomes,” says Choonara.
“Currently, the technology is being pivoted to a simpler noseto-brain delivery strategy. This is a significant opportunity for low-resourced healthcare settings where conventional mental health treatment is notoriously difficult to get right.” C
DREAMING WITH NEW TOOLS
Artificial Intelligence is helping African architects rediscover their heritage and is inspiring them to build, create and explore with traditional knowledge that spans generations.
TAMSIN MACKAY AFREEKTURE
Aquiet revolution is unfolding in the Wits School of Architecture and Planning. Here, new questions are being asked in a space that has been shaped by architects like Pancho Guedes and Peter Rich –whose interrogations of why African architecture and buildings look like European imitations have been answered with clay, memory, ritual and code.
Undertaken by Dr Sechaba Maape, an architect, academic and the Director of Afreetekture, the research is rooted at the intersection of Indigenous Knowledge Systems and generative Artificial Intelligence (AI). Blending the history and knowledge of indigenous Africa with futuristic tools, he is reimagining what architecture once was before concrete and colonialism took over and what it could be again.
“We have been collectively conditioned,” says Maape. “Architectural schools here still teach about hearths and insulation – concepts born from cold countries, not from a place where the sun is warm even in winter. The challenge is to find a way of translating African ideas, philosophies, theories, principles and concepts into modern architecture.”
However, this is not simply a matter of creating round forms or using bright colours. “When you think critically, you realise that this does not get to the heart of African architectural concepts and potential.”
OUT IN AFRICA
Maape’s approach started with stories. Using rituals, oral histories, sketching and clay-sculpting, his work traces design back to its oldest African roots. In his view, indigenous architecture is about thresholds, movement, adaptation and living outside.
“In the past, buildings were not what held life together – it was ritual and flow,” he explains. Architecture was light and mobile, rooted in ecology and ceremony and not in the separation from them.”
When Maape speaks of the land, he uses the term ‘tropical ontology’, a reminder that climate shapes culture. In warmer zones, where survival does not require confinement, people build differently and homes are thresholds, not containers. Life happens outside.
Designing for the future when the tools lie in the past is complex. Enter AI, which Maape is using as a cultural collaborator. The technology is helping to visualise architectural ideas that are otherwise impossible to iterate using traditional software.
ANCESTORS OUTDOORS
“AI is helping us answer the question: what else could we become?” says Maape. “Generative AI takes a Ndebele homestead, for example, and reimagines it for the modern city, showing what might happen if urban design was based on local, indigenous knowledge. AI is allowing for an expedited process of iteration and experimentation. I say, if you have a machine that costs billions, use it to solve some of the most problematic issues in society and I am using it to
IN THE PAST, BUILDINGS WERE NOT WHAT HELD LIFE TOGETHER – IT WAS RITUAL AND FLOW.
AI generated design concept inspired by Pancho Guedes’s Smiling Lion in Maputo
break away from the mental and intellectual lock-ins we have here in South Africa.”
At Brebnor House, a Wits-owned property for architectural experimentation, Maape recently undertook a project with students using AI and other tools to rethink structures and buildings that had a very thin mediation between them and the outside world – a thin line between indoors and outdoors that blends the two organically.
“It is opposite to what we have been taught, that architecture itself is this thing separating us, rather than connecting us, to the outside world,” says Maape. “We have a culture that embraces the outdoors and AI is giving us the freedom to explore the development of spaces that speak to ancestral logics of openness and adaptation.”
A CITY REIMAGINED
When Maape presented these imagined futures and designs at an exhibition, attendees were stunned. “They did not realise that our City could look like this,” he says. Suddenly it was possible to visualise a future that did not mimic the past.
Afreetekture is a reframing of modernity, asking architects to stop mistaking permanence for value, and insulation for comfort, and instead to reorient design around life. AI and indigenous knowledge systems are giving African architects permission to dream with their own tools.
“We are not trying to go back,” Maape says. “We are trying to remember forward.” C
AI exploration of spaces inspired by indigenous South African textiles
SAVING THE LIFESAVERS FROM SLEEP DISRUPTION
Dr Joshua Davimes is on a mission to understand sleep, sleep deprivation and its impact on frontline emergency workers in Africa’s extreme conditions.
LEANNE RENCKEN CHANTÉ SCHATZ
It’s 4am somewhere in Gauteng and Dr Joshua Davimes is at a garage forecourt, waiting for an end-of-shift paramedic to hand over an actigraphy device. Worn on the wrist, it tracks sleep and activity over time. This is fieldwork: the ambulance bases, ER corridors, petrol stations, liminal spaces that South Africa’s emergency responders pass through, exhausted and unseen. “It’s bizarre work,” says Davimes. “It doesn't bother me. It doesn't scare me. It excites me.”
COUNTING SHEEP
A Senior Lecturer in the School of Biomedical Sciences at Wits, Davimes is disrupting the traditional lab-bound model of sleep science. He’s out in the world gathering data on the sleep health of those who hold the frontline during traumaparamedics, ER doctors, emergency physicians and security personnel.
His research group, Sleep Health Exploration in Extreme Populations, focuses on shift workers in high-stake, lowresource environments. The group’s findings have shed light on what Davimes calls the “backstage” reality of emergency work: poor sleep, untreated trauma, burnout masked by stoic professionalism and African-specific taboos around sleep. These are the people who, as he puts it, “sacrifice five to ten years of their lifespan” to care for others while operating under intense stress and irregular hours, often with minimal support.
NEUROSCIENTIFIC DREAMS
Davimes didn’t plan on this career path. He considered engineering, architecture and even film school. However,
a lifelong fascination with the brain, shaped through deep conversations with his father who had multiple sclerosis and his mother who used dream therapy in her social work, eventually led him to neuroscience.
As a curious child, he was drawn to big questions and he’s still looking for answers: “Sleep is an emergent property of consciousness in the brain,” he says. “It’s this weird state you go into every night where you lose your sense of self and then rebuild it again on waking.” It’s not just the biology that fascinates him but the mystery that surrounds it.
His comparative studies of sleep in mammals, from the humble dassie to the desert-dwelling Arabian oryx were the starting point. He then turned his focus to human populations, especially those living or working in extreme environments. A 2016 field study conducted with members of the Khoi San community, sparked his interest in pre-industrial sleep patterns and the environmental factors that shape rest. He describes this fieldwork as a turning point: “It showed me you could engage closely with a community, study their sleep in natural settings, and produce data that actually matters to society.”
SLEEP SAVES LIVES
Davimes is on a mission to improve the sleep cycles of overworked professionals and to disrupt the wider systems that make their exhaustion inevitable. From better shift scheduling, to lobbying for bunks at ambulance bases, he’s also working to change the public perception of sleep from representing laziness to it being a life-saving necessity. His findings already
SLEEP IS FREE HEALTHCARE. IF WE CAN GET IT RIGHT, WE CAN CHANGE LIVES.
highlight simple interventions, from improving sleep hygiene to adjusting rota patterns and advocating reforms that acknowledge the real cost of sleep deprivation.
THE INJUSTICE OF SLEEP DEPRIVATION
What drives him most is the human side of science. About the state of sleep in South Africa, he says, “It’s just another injustice I see in society that could be improved quite easily.” He thrives on the reality of fieldwork, finding satisfaction in small wins, strong collaboration and solving puzzles that result in actual change. He recently joined the Wits Machine
Intelligence and Neural Discovery Institute as a fellow – a freethinking space where his sleep research intersects with broader questions in neuroscience and AI. For Davimes, it’s a place to ask bold questions and find unexpected allies and answers.
His aim isn’t just to understand sleep. Davimes wants to build evidence that can alter policy and perception –particularly in African contexts where data is scarce, resources are stretched and the burden on frontline workers is more extreme than in other settings “Sleep is free healthcare,” he says. “If we can get it right, we can change lives.” C
THE MUSICAL GENRE THAT MOVED THE WORLD TO A SOUTH AFRICAN BEAT
Amapiano, the musical genre that emerged from the townships of South Africa in the mid-2010s, has grown from a local underground sound into a global cultural force.
CHANTÉ SCHATZ CHANTÉ SCHATZ
Afusion of deep house, jazz, kwaito and lounge music, Amapiano’s roots lie in the streets of Gauteng, particularly in Pretoria and Johannesburg, where young producers began experimenting with sloweddown beats, log drum basslines and airy melodies.
FROM SOSHANGUVE, EDENVALE, THEMBISA
This DIY spirit gave rise to a new wave of artists who bypassed industry gatekeepers to connect directly with audiences. Artists like Kabza De Small and DJ Maphorisa, known collectively as the Scorpion Kings, led the charge. Rising stars
like Uncle Waffles went viral globally, landing a residency on BBC Radio 1 and performing at Coachella 2024. DJ Tyler ICU’s global hit Mnike dominated charts worldwide, while singersongwriter Tyla, though blending Amapiano with pop and R&B, won a 2024 Grammy for Best African Music Performance for her track Water
For Wits Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Studies, Dr Palesa Nqambaza-Lebea, currently based at the University of Oxford, Amapiano is both a cultural and a political movement. “It may sound like party music but the genre is rooted in conditions of struggle,” she explains. “Those dreams emerge from a place of material lack.”
REMEMBERING ROOTS
Nqambaza-Lebea links Amapiano’s rise to broader themes in her research on race, gender and post-apartheid South Africa. She sees the genre as a voice of the youth, seemingly apolitical but layered with the realities of inequality, economic precarity and survival. “It’s a schizophrenic relationship,” she says. “The music offers escape but also reminds us from what we’re trying to escape.”
Amapiano’s evolution also mirrors shifts in youth identity. For Nqambaza-Lebea, the genre “celebrates the genius that comes from the township”, while offering nostalgia and freshness in equal measure. “It’s a trip,” she says. “It reminds you of the '90s, of kwaito, but it’s also fast paced and global. That combination is what makes it so powerful.”
Yet despite having its roots here, Amapiano is no longer confined within South Africa’s borders.
SA = AMAPIANO
“When I’m abroad, people don’t say ‘South Africa –Mandela’ anymore. They say ‘South Africa – Amapiano’. That says something. In Europe, at Amapiano festivals, you’ll see people from Tanzania, Botswana and Ghana waving their flags, singing along. It’s beautiful to witness, especially when we think about how we treat other Africans back home.”
Internationally, Amapiano is now “putting South Africa on the map” in ways that once belonged to the likes of Mandela. Yet the genre’s global success has also raised questions of ownership and cultural equity, particularly in how African creators benefit from platforms like TikTok.
WHAT WITSIES SAY
Q: IN ONE WORD, WHAT DOES AMAPIANO SOUND LIKE TO YOU?
Ziyanda Mbutho (4th year): Heavenly. It just makes me want to move.
Paballo Sethathi (3rd year): A vibe. There are layers to it, chilled or upbeat depending on your day.
Inathinkosi Doncabe (4th year): Heartbeat. You don’t just hear it, you feel it.
Q: WHEN DID YOU FIRST HEAR AMAPIANO, AND WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER ABOUT THAT MOMENT?
Lesedi Mokoena (3rd year): At a taxi rank in Tembisa. I was waiting for a ride and immediately asked the driver for the name of the song.
Neha Naidoo (3rd year) : In high school. I would see my classmates recording themselves dancing to Amapiano songs during break.
Matthew de Villiers (1st year): During Covid-19. I was scrolling on TikTok and there was this song John vul'igate that was literally all over my social media.
Q: HOW HAS AMAPIANO CHANGED HOW YOUNG PEOPLE IN SOUTH AFRICA EXPERIENCE MUSIC?
Ziyanda: By giving them freedom to express themselves creatively through dance, fashion and a carefree, freespirited culture.
Paballo: It has empowered young township artists to take ownership of the genre and lead its direction, becoming pioneers of its future.
“African content creators drive the trends, but they aren’t the ones getting paid. A DJ in South Africa might inspire a viral TikTok but it’s a creator in the North who monetises it. That’s political.”
BREAKING RULES, SETTING TRENDS
What makes Amapiano’s rise truly disruptive is that it broke every conventional rule. It didn’t emerge from record labels or radio stations – it rose from the ground up, through viral dance videos, WhatsApp shares and township parties. It redefined who gets to lead in music culture and how.
“It’s wild,” says Wits alumnus and Amapiano DJ Sicelo Mabaso, describing the sound that first gripped him in a packed nightclub in 2019. “People were going crazy over the beat, it was more than music, it was electricity.”
Mabaso, who goes by the stage name Polymath at popular lounge spot Drama Bar in Braamfontein, explains how Amapiano has transformed how South African youth experience music. “It’s now an immersive thing, every song has a dance, a trend, a look. It’s a lifestyle. It’s culture. It’s fashion. It’s a certain way of talking, of dressing, of showing up.”
Dance moves like the Tshwala Bam have gone viral, fuelled by TikTok. “Amapiano and TikTok are made for each other. It’s why the sound travels fast and far,” said Mabaso.
With its evolution into sub-genres and its ever-growing global appeal, Amapiano has done more than disrupt the music scene, it’s transformed it. What began in the streets is now shaping stages worldwide, one beat at a time. C
Inathinkosi: It opened doors in a difficult industry and made music relatable to everyone.
Q: HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS JOINING THE AMAPIANO WAVE?
Lesedi: Let them come but with respect and collaboration. Our artists also have to benefit from the international recognition.
Neha: It’s exciting but we must make sure South African creators benefit.
Matthew: I don’t follow it closely but I see it across the globe and it’s nice to see people from our home, like Tyla, making waves on international stages.
Q: IS AMAPIANO THE SOUND OF GEN Z?
Ziyanda: Definitely. I cannot imagine my mother doing all these dance moves, like the Bacardi move. I think it's just for us, the most free-spirited generation.
Paballo: It’s definitely for the Gen Z’s. We are the ones shaping it.
Inathinkosi: It is, because it brings young people together to connect, have fun and enjoy what they love, through music.
Q: WHY DO AMAPIANO DANCE TRENDS GO VIRAL ON SOCIAL MEDIA?
Lesego: Because they’re organic. Someone posts a video in their backyard and suddenly it’s everywhere.
Neha: It’s more than dancing, it’s identity. Everyone wants to feel part of something.
Matthew: It’s fun, it’s easy to learn and the beats are addictive. You can’t scroll past it.
As
South Africa’s animation industry gains global attention, local studios are redefining ownership, asserting creative agency and keeping intellectual property close to home.
With competitive skill sets, affordable rates, positive labour laws, English proficiency and a favourable time zone, upskilled South Africans are an attractive commodity for many international corporations and well-positioned to attract outsourced work. This is true across multiple industries, including South African animation, which is gaining global critical acclaim and recognition.
Local studios like Triggerfish and Mind’s Eye Creative, for example, have landed major projects for platforms such as Netflix, Disney+ and Nickelodeon, while other homegrowns, including Luma, Sunrise Studios and Chocolate Tribe, are
winning awards and making waves in 3D animation, religious content, advertising and visual effects.
“Studios are finding their niche and landing international client work. As an industry, we’re still developing but we’re much larger than we used to be and we’re growing steadily,” says Rachel van Rooyen, a PhD student and Lecturer in Animation in Wits Digital Arts.
In a collaboration between the Games, Artificial Intelligence and Culture (GAIC) Lab and Digital Arts, van Rooyen’s research explores how South African animators navigate cultural and socioeconomic challenges - while asserting creative and economic agency globally.
SAMANTHA HERBST
ACKNOWLEDGING NUANCE
Certain narratives peg South African animation and international outsourcing as a generally positive move for the industry, but many detractors find the outsourced product to be “culturally odourless”. The discourse around African animation remains problematic and it’s this tension that van Rooyen challenges in her doctoral research.
“Our animation is sometimes deemed not ‘native’ enough, while international audiences might see it as ‘strange’ or outside the norm. It’s a colonialist lens – expecting our work to be sanitised for an international audience,” says van Rooyen.
However, amidst these polarities, van Rooyen says that neither viewpoint reflects the nuanced reality of local animation.
“South Africans are used to multicultural perspectives and that’s reflected in what we produce. It’s culturally positive and pluralist. We need to shift how we talk about this in animation studies.”
BYPASSING BARRIERS
Van Rooyen’s research also highlights how local studios are navigating obstacles and building sustainable models. Studios like Rams Comics and Cabblow Studios have embraced the rise of internet-based platforms, bypassing traditional distribution barriers by engaging directly with their audiences.
Rams Comics’ business model leverages the distribution power of large clients, who pay them a licensing fee, allowing Rams to retain their intellectual property rights. Cabblow Studios, led by a mother-daughter team, subverted the rules of traditional marketing to generate a buzz about their show even before it aired. They sold merchandise and created a social media presence, which secured funding and ensured that the team retained ownership of their product.
Van Rooyen concludes that while finding a voice on the global stage might mean relinquishing ownership and IP to international corporations, disruptors in local animation are bypassing these types of industry barriers. C
POWER SURGE IN AFRICAN DIGITAL ARTS
Wits University’s Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct helps entrepreneurs and SMMEs thrive in creative industries like animation, gaming, VR/AR/XR and makerspaces.
With programmes like the Digital Skills Academy and the Mollo Animation Academy – an 11-month paid internship for graduates and self-taught artists - the hub supports marginalised youth and cultivates digital careers.
Tshimologong hosts the Fak’ugesi Digital Innovation Festival, an annual celebration of art, culture, technology and their many intersectionalities.
This year’s theme is Power Surge, spotlighting Africa’s creative and economic resilience.
“Africa isn’t waiting to catch up. We are charging ahead,” says Fak’ugesi’s Festival Director Alby Michaels. “Even as global markets slow down, Africa saw over R64-billion invested in startups in 2024 - especially in financial innovation, climate technology and creative industries.”
The 2025 Fakugesi Festival will pull together five key pillars: AI, Sustainability, Climate Justice, Creative Infrastructure and Economic Justice. The goal is to unite the vast capabilities of our country’s creative workforce in these fields and to share knowledge and ideas on how to adapt, innovate and thrive in a fast-paced digital economy.
The 2025 Fak’ugesi Festival runs from 9 to 12 October at Tshimologong and at Wits University.
The age and origins of rock painting in southern Africa are disputed, but cross-disciplinary research is unearthing how societies began depicting images on walls – a crucial milestone in human culture.
In the 1970s, Nick Walker of the Natural History Museum in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, conducted research at the Pomongwe Cave in the Motobo National Park. He proposed that some elements in the layers beneath the rock art could be about 11 000 years old but his research needed more proof.
Now, a research programme underway in the Bambata and Pomongwe Caves in Zimbabwe’s Matobo Hills is challenging previously accepted knowledge about southern African rock art.
Dr Tammy Hodgskiss Reynard, an ochre researcher and Curator at the Wits Origins Centre is collaborating on the interdisciplinary Matobart Research Programme with principal investigator and archaeologist Dr Camille Bourdier from the University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès in France. Over the past eight years, Bourdier, who is also an Honorary Researcher at Wits’ Rock Art Research Institute, has collaborated with researchers and students from South African, Zimbabwean and French academies and scientific institutions.
The collaboration with Hodgskiss Reynard, who Bourdier considers to be a world authority on rock art paint and pigments, began two years ago and also includes Wits PhD student, Takunda Chigwende, whose doctoral research is looking at the rock art of Pomongwe.
Key to the Matobart project is cross-studying rock paintings and the archaeological layers at their base, which include specks of charcoal and rock splinters containing paint fragments. The aim is to look at their chronology and cultural attributes and to understand the prevailing climatic and
SARAH HUDLESTON
environmental conditions of the time.
Although recent modern analysis of paintings on portable rocks found in the Apollo 11 cave in southwest Namibia in 1969 revealed that the paint is more than 27 000 years old, there is a huge gap in the dates, which hopefully, according to Hodgskiss Reynard, will now begin to be filled.
THE ARTIST’S MUSE?
The research focuses on analysing the dynamics in the production of rock art in deep time (estimated to be between five and 11 000 years ago). Until now, it’s been accepted that the oldest in situ rock paintings in southern Africa date back around 5 500 years.
“Beyond the generally accepted age of 5 500 years for the rock art, the question of chronology of graphic representation on objects and rock walls remains open,” says Bourdier.
Was the motivation behind the creation of the rock art a natural need relating to physiological, neural or cognitive biological transformations? Rather, can the artists’ behaviour be understood as a social response to other factors such as climatic or sociological changes?
ROCK ART CHANGE AND CONTINUITY
The team is examining the issue of change and continuity in the rock painting tradition, in terms of techniques, motifs, forms and assemblages. This approach contrasts with the conventional consideration of hunter-gatherer societies as
conservative, stable and possibly passive and addresses the issue of dynamics.
Hodgskiss Reynard says, “It could shift the perspective of how the creators of these paintings expressed cultural changes and to what extent these changes reveal adaptations to climatic conditions, environments, economic resources and even the demographic landscape.”
CHEMICAL SIGNATURES
While much of the analysis of rock art has up to now focused on the spirituality and meaning behind the images, little attention has been given to examining how the paints were made or where the artists got the pigments.
“Now, particularly in the Matobart project and through Chigwende’s PhD research, the focus is on understanding the paint-making processes, paint recipes and the chemical signature of the paint,” says Hodgskiss Reynard.
These chemical signatures reflect the pigments and binders used to mix and create the paint.
“It won’t tell us anything about the ‘what’ but about the ‘how,’ providing insights into the technology used by the past hunter-gatherers, i.e., their knowledge and know-how about which ingredients to use, where to collect them and how to process them.”
ROCK ART-ARCHAEOLOGY BRIDGES
Hodgskiss Reynard notes that rock art is often treated separately from the archaeological assemblage but the Matobart project changes that.
“Archaeology is greatly enhanced by merging artefactual and experimental insights and rock art analysis with physicochemical understanding of the paint, which Chigwende’s exciting PhD project within the School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Studies explores,” says Hodgskiss Reynard.
Bourdier says that this combined approach aligns with the transformational power of hunter-gatherer societies, which enabled them to survive this way for thousands of years.
“Analysing changes and continuities in rock art paint technology is another way to address the issue of the cultural dynamics in ancient hunter-gatherer societies and their relationships to the environment,” she says. C
WHEN NO MEANS
The Constitution protects equality before the law but sexual offences, which mostly victimise women, demand an extra burden of proof that other crimes do not. The Centre for Applied Legal Studies is challenging this law.
In 2021, the High Court in Grahamstown handed down a deeply controversial ruling in a case involving Loyiso Coko, who was accused of raping his intimate partner. Although the complainant clearly and repeatedly communicated her refusal, both before and during the sexual encounter, the High Court accepted Coko’s argument that he had genuinely believed she had consented and it acquitted him on that basis.
MISTAKEN CONSENT
This decision came despite the complainant’s testimony that she cried during the incident, asked him to stop and expressed her non-consent throughout. Yet, the court held that Coko lacked the necessary intent to commit rape because he was allegedly mistaken about the presence of consent.
The High Court gave troubling reasons for why it believed the accused might have been genuinely confused about whether there was consent such as “the complainant was an equally active participant, she was not merely passive - she
kissed the appellant back, she held him… she watched him take off his clothes without objecting, she knew he was erect, she did not object to the oral sex”.
Fortunately, the Supreme Court of Appeal overturned the Grahamstown High Court’s decision, stating that “the High Court found, on insubstantial grounds, that TS was an active participant” and that “her cries and groans… served as an unequivocal indication that she disapproved of the respondent's conduct. Despite this, the respondent was unfazed and continued penetrating her”.
SUBJECTIVE BELIEFS OF CONSENT
This case illustrates a technical legal principle that imposes a significant burden on prosecutors (who bear the onus of establishing proof beyond a reasonable doubt) which can lead to failures in securing the conviction of rapists.
Claiming that you mistakenly believed that the complainant had consented to a sexual encounter is a defence in South African criminal law. This defence emerges because of the
RAPE IS ONE OF THE FEW SETS OF OFFENCES WHICH REQUIRE CONSENT AS AN ELEMENT OF THE CRIME RATHER THAN LEAVING IT AS A DEFENCE.
UNFAIR BURDEN OF PROOF ON VICTIMS
Most importantly, the Centre highlights how the law is inherently unequal regarding rape and other sexual offences which disproportionately affect women. Rape is one of the few sets of offences which require consent as an element of the crime rather than leaving it as a defence which the accused can rely upon.
elements required for the crime of rape. The prosecution must prove that the accused acted intentionally and knowingly in committing the crime. This duty also includes proving that the accused knew that the complainant did not consent to the act. However, given that we currently include consent as an element of the crime of rape, the accused can be acquitted by raising the defence that they were mistaken in believing consent was present.
One way to change the law is to remove the existence of the mistaken belief in consent defence by doing away with consent as a definitional element of rape. This approach will be suggested to the Constitutional Court by Wits’ Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS) in the case of Embrace NPC v Minister of Police scheduled to be heard in the apex court later this year.
In the Embrace case, the Centre argues that due to the current framing of rape and many other sexual offences with consent as a requirement, there is an unfairly high burden on prosecutors to prove that the accused knew consent was absent and proceeded regardless. This burden then shifts to the complainant, who is ordinarily the only person who was present with the accused, to show in her testimony how much she communicated her lack of consent to the accused so he would not be mistaken about its presence
For example, assault is defined as the unlawful and intentional act or threat of an act that impairs an individual's bodily integrity. Assault, like rape, is a violation of various rights of an individual including dignity and the right to be free from all forms of violence. Yet, in assault cases, the prosecutor does not need to prove that the accused knew there was a lack of consent. Instead, the accused raises this as a defence, and subsequently, the accused has the burden of proving there was consent.
REFORMING SA’S SEXUAL OFFENCES LAW
Under section 9 of the Constitution, everyone has the right to equality before the law, yet in criminal offences, which have women as the predominant victim, the prosecutors and consequently the victim have an extra burden of proof not required to be proven in other violent offences.
If successful in its argument, the Centre will positively affect change in sexual offences law to represent a fairer process for survivors. C
Dr Sheena Swemmer works at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at Wits, where she is Head of the Gender Justice Programme. She is both a researcher and a practising human rights attorney. Her research focuses on violence against women, children, animals, and the law.
REALISE YOUR FULL POTENTIAL AS A ‘PRACADEMIC’
Professional and administrative services in universities are a functional necessity but they can also be legitimate research subjects to which their practitioners can contribute academically.
ELENI FLACK-DAVISON AND DR TAARIQ SURTEE
Traditionally, research is viewed as the domain of academics, who are often seen as primary knowledge creators. However, professional staff – those who manage, coordinate, enable and sometimes directly contribute to research – may not be aware that they, too, can undertake academic projects.
In the contemporary academic landscape, many professional services are increasingly acknowledged as research contributions in their own right. In this article, we, who ourselves undertook such an adventure, aim to inspire professional staff to further their studies and contribute to the body of academic knowledge.
At the heart of our story lies the understanding that we are all part of a larger ecosystem, each contributing uniquely to the shared goal of creating and advancing knowledge. By actively encouraging professional staff to study further and to engage with research, we can cultivate an environment in which every voice is valued and people can better themselves no matter their official role.
“PRACADEMIC” RESEARCH
Research managers, for example, bridge the gap between professional staff and academic pursuit by being “pracademics.” As institutions continually seek to increase the impact of their academic research output, the contributions of research managers in practice have become more pronounced and critical.
The importance of research managers in enabling rigorous research cannot be overstated – they not only facilitate the logistical aspects of research but also contribute to the core tenets of reliability, provenance (attribution) and reproducibility.
The usually long-standing relationships between professional staff and academics enables a symbiotic sharing of knowledge and information, fostering a deeper understanding of research that enhances the integrity, reliability and efficacy of research output. This relationship can quickly turn into supervision and/ or collaboration.
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
In this way, the perception that research and knowledge creation is primarily the domain of academics is changing. The curiosity of professional staff has been piqued as they begin to realise the contribution that their wealth of experience and insights can make to an academic project.
Many professional staff have a deep understanding of the intricacies of the academic support processes, research and/ or project management, grant applications, and legal, ethical, and other compliance requirements. These professional staff could provide thought leadership in their disciplines while conducting what is (for them) routine administrative tasks. These individuals are pivotal players who can enhance the academic landscape through their expertise and unique perspectives. They view research practice through unique lenses with expertise that is cross-disciplinary and that applies across faculties.
CO-AUTHORSHIP
One significant shift in academia today is the realisation that professional staff can co-author research papers and projects. Since the academic authorship landscape is double-blind peer-reviewed, anyone with the relevant expertise can be
recognised for their contributions to the body of knowledge. Hence, research professionals with first-hand experience and innovative ideas can advance research.
When professional staff are involved in reporting findings, they bring a more holistic view of their environments, enriching academic conversations and raising previously overlooked issues. Moreover, bridging the divide between professional staff and academics can facilitate significant positive change in research. Professional staff are equipped to ensure compliance with ethical standards, manage data integrity and uphold the rigour of methodology. They are foundational in achieving reliable results by spearheading initiatives that promote best practices that they have learnt from various sources. An example of their value is the area of growing concern where artificial intelligence is infiltrating the scientific community.
CATALYSING COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
Developments in thought leadership, further study and co-authorship have broader implications for the academic community, including establishing “communities of practice”. Within these communities, both professional staff and academics can collaborate to share experiences, discuss challenges and brainstorm solutions. The benefit to academics is that they can pick up students and co-authors, while professional staff can further their education and if they wish, one day choose to be academics or “pracademics” themselves.
Such communities foster mutual respect and learning where everyone feels empowered to improve, regardless of title or role. By taking this approach, true partnerships can emerge, enhancing the research culture within institutions which also gain by producing more research.
Empowering professional staff and celebrating their contributions validates their roles and enriches the academic community. Embracing this ethos could be the key to unlocking a new era of creativity, innovation, and progress in research. C
Eleni Flack-Davison, LLM, is an admitted attorney and legal adviser, Research Compliance Manager and Head of the Office of Research Integrity at Wits. She contributed to the Academy of Science of South Africa’s POPIA Research Framework. A “pracademic”, she has co-authored journal articles in legal and research data protection and research ethics and integrity. She is a Fellow of Wits’ Machine Intelligence and Neural Discovery (MIND) Institute.
Dr Taariq Surtee is the Head of e-Research in the Wits Research Office. He holds a doctorate in Management. A published academic, he researches optimisation mathematics, theology, research management and artificial intelligence. In his current role as a professional in the Wits Research Office, he works closely with academics on research data management, providing access to research instruments and high-performance computing resources.
I THINK I THINK… THEREFORE…
AM I?
Relaxing on the beach of the new coastal town of Howick, the future version of Schalk Mouton is pondering eternity and existence.
Relaxing on the beach of the new coastal town of Howick, the future version of Schalk Mouton is pondering eternity and existence.
Late afternoon, July 2055. I am lazing on the beach, in the port city of Howick in KwaZulu-Natal. The coastline moved here years ago, after the melting of the last piece of ice on the Antarctic continent – an event that the US president at the time said was “FAKE news, created by WEAK, EVIL people”.
The sun’s lazy blue hue breaks through the mirror shield, lying 20km above, protecting our vulnerable planet from burning-up further. The Howick falls plunge into the ocean below. We’ve been here for a week on a lovely coastal breakaway.
A trip to Howick is definitely worth it now that the ocean is only about 400km from Joburg and the real thing is so much better than the digital ocean back in Joburg. Here, you can actually smell the slightly acidic sea – not the synthetic salty version AI can’t quite seem to get right.
Life is great. Blissful. Lying on the beach, sipping cocktails all day long – even though the know-it-all AI butler refuses to serve me a mojito after sweeping my body with its (he/she/it? Who knows!) quantum powered body scanner, claiming that some compound in the mint leaves isn’t compatible with my skin tone.
Still, it’s good to have a break from everyday life, back in the city. Now, part of “The Village,” Joburg is run automatically, by software. Like the rest of the world, the suburb of Joburg is controlled by the thoughts and fetishes of the being previously known as Elon Musk who decided years ago to turn himself into the first transhuman. He no longer walks. His body is maintained by nanotech; his mind is uploaded into every system – banking, climate control, narrative shaping. He is hailed as a prophet, a tyrant, a joke, a god.
Secretly still infatuated by Trump, Musk (now known by the self-proclaimed title “BIG D@DDY!”) has a speech pattern that still echoes Trumpian confidence and divisiveness, but which is sharpened by algorithms that measure real-time population sentiment. He is populism perfected – emotionally manipulative, instantly adaptive and impossible to depose. He doesn’t win elections; he updates his firmware.
MADE TO MOVE?
But all that can be forgotten, for the moment. Lying on the beach, with nothing else to preoccupy me, I think – “I could do this forever!”. But then, immediately, a conflicting thought enters what I believe is my mind. “But could I really?” Would I actually be happy, just reclining on the beach, sipping (bland) cocktails for the rest of my life – which, thanks to medical enhancements, will last another 300 years?
I close my eyes and automatically open my brain-infused internet browser – I’m quite old-school that way – and I search for conversations I had back in 2025 with some Wits professors. “Are we made to move? To think? To have purpose in life?”.
Back then, Professor Demitri Constantinou from the Department of Exercise Science and Sports Medicine predicted that, should I succumb to indolence, I would become an obese, diabetic, miserable blob with hypertension, Alzheimer’s and all kinds of other problems thrown into the mix.
“Our bodies are definitely designed to move. Just like a car, if we don’t move, our parts seize up,” he said. The benefits of physical exercise have been proven without a doubt. Back then, exercise was even used to help expedite recovery from
THE SUBURB OF JOBURG IS
CONTROLLED BY
THE THOUGHTS AND FETISHES OF THE BEING PREVIOUSLY KNOWN AS ELON MUSK.
surgery (remember when you actually had to go for surgery to get things like a heart transplant!). Various organisations, including the World Health Organization, used to have various programmes and initiatives to get people involved in physical exercise – but it was an uphill battle.
A colleague of Constantinou’s, Professor Philippe Gradidge agreed that physical exercise was not only useful to get people moving but that it also had a social dimension. “People connect socially through engagement in physical exercise,” he said. “Activities such as Parkrun and sports clubs are extremely valuable in building holistic wellbeing in people.”
THE EVOLUTION OF LAZY
Kate Cockcroft, Professor of Psychology at Wits, said that humans are definitely designed to move and think. Our brain’s ability to adapt over millennia in response to changing environmental demands is what has led to our being the dominant species (before the rise of transhumans, that is). However, we have also evolved to be “lazy”.
“Our brain works to maximise efficiency and minimise effort or expenditure of resources [some say that’s lazy], so whenever it can find a way to avoid cognitive effort, it will. That’s why generative AI platforms like ChatGPT are so appealing and so widely used. So, whenever we can find ways of making our lives easier, we will,” said Cockcroft.
COMFORTABLY BUMMED
Looking around at the individual semi-life forms lying around on the beach confirms Cockcroft’s (and Constantinou’s) assertions. We expended a lot of effort in the past in designing the world around us to make life easier, rendering us lazy. It is an irreversible spiral, where the more thinking and physical exercise we do, the more we want to do. While, on the other hand, the less you do, the less you want to do.
Back in 2025, Cockcroft believed that freeing up resources allowed us to engage in a range of other cognitive tasks, like creative endeavours and critical thinking. Like the Greeks and Romans of old, we might again come together and challenge each other in lively debate. But, even back in the day, there is no way that I would have wanted to see any of my colleagues dressed up in their bedsheets to attend a debate at work –100% Egyptian cotton from Woolies or not!
But for now, daydreaming, I sip a cocktail while in the background the latest bland AI generated hit is playing softly. I am bored to death. For eternity. C
HOW THE TAUNG CHILD SHOOK UP THE SCIENTIFIC WORLD
Almost 100 years before calls to decolonise science, Taung was challenging researchers to reassess their internal biases.
BRIGETTE COHEN
The Taung Child turns 100 years old in 2025, officially making it an antique. Why was the find so important and how did it turn the nascent field of palaeoanthropology on its head?
By the end of the 19th Century, the principles of evolution were widely accepted in the scientific world. Although many fossils had been discovered, the hunt was on for the origins of our own species.
BIG BRAINS
In 1880 a Homo erectus, Java Man, had been discovered in Indonesia. Looking at this specimen, scientists concluded that the only way this fangless, clawless, awkward creature could possibly have survived was through superior intellect. Early humans, they decided, would be characterised by big brains.
This was reinforced by the discovery of the Piltdown Man in England in 1912. This creature had a big human-like skull (exactly alike as it turned out) and an ape-like jaw. However, the most important characteristic of the Piltdown Man was the location. Scientists of the time, almost exclusively European men, fully believed in themselves as the superior race and the idea that the origins of man would trace a direct path to them was deeply entrenched – an African origin for humankind was unimaginable.
AFRICAN ORIGINS
Enter Raymond Dart in 1925, then head of the newly commissioned Wits Medical School, who announced the discovery of an African ape-man (Australopithecus africanus), which became known as the Taung Child. The fossil was discovered by labourers in a lime quarry in the Norther Cape. It was that of an infant and while it had many of the features that scientists were looking for, its brain was tiny. Some members of the scientific community did not react favourably to this discovery and Dart was discredited and shunned on all fronts. Vindication took 20 years, supported by the discovery of many more fossils in South and East Africa which showed that the big brain was a later development in human evolution. However, it was the exposure of the Piltdown Man as a hoax that really put the nail in the coffin of European claims.
DISRUPTING BELIEFS
Today, Africa is widely understood to be the Cradle of Humankind. The discovery of the Taung fossil disrupted debates on human origins – not because of what it was, but because it challenged what people wanted to believe. As recent history has shown, this is an ongoing process which South African palaeoanthropology will continue to advance. C
DISRUPTING
DISRUPTING THE WAY SOUTH AFRICA LEARNS DISRUPTING
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