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What our bloggers have recently said...
Decolonizing higher education pedagogies: Michalinos Zembylas
- Last Thursday, a healthy contingent of CPUT ECP lecturers attended the seminar by Michalinos Zembylas at UWC, entitled Decolonizing higher education pedagogies: Good intentions are not enough. Prof Zembylas is Associate Professor of Education at the Open University of Cyprus, but has visiting Professor positions at both the Free State and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Universities. His research interests ...more
Walter Sisulu University comes to visit
- Mandla Mantshongo, Tabile Loqo & Mawethu Ngeleshe Last Tuesday, 28 November 2017, the ECP Unit hosted colleagues from the Extended Curriculum Programme at Walter Sisulu University. Tabile Logo, WSU Institutional ECP Coordinator mentioned that her interest in discussing how CPUT manages its ECP grant funds promoted the request to visit our institution and meet with ...more
Stimulating HELTASA 2017
- Dylan Cromhout, an ECP lecturer in Marketing Department in the Faculty of Business and Management Sciences and one of the Foundation Special Interest Group (SIG) convenors at CPUT, attended this years' HELTASA conference. He offers some reflections on his engagement at the conference. The 2017 Heltasa conference was hosted by DUT and took place in Durban at ...more
Tenacity and hard work: PAG foundation curriculum about to become a reality
- When the ECP Unit at Fundani was approached by Prof Harry Ballard, HoD for the department of Public Administration and Governance, to assist with conceptualizing their ECP offering, little did we know we would be embarking on a 18 month-plus curriculum design and development journey. The first workshops with Prof Ballard and his ECP staff ...more
Benefits of writing retreats - ECP lecturers reflect
- Last week the annual ECP Writing Retreat was held at the picturesque Mont Fleur conference estate in Stellenbosch. A few ECP lecturers who participated in this year's event share their experiences and highlight the benefits of this dedicated time away to think and do 'writing' Megan Alexander, Andre Cornelius and Robert Schultz, Business The 2017 ECP Writing ...more
A highlight from the National ECP colloquium
- Moses Basitere, ECP lecturer in Chemical Engineering, recently attended the National ECP colloquium jointly organised by DUT and MUT in Durban on 20-21 September 2017. In this post he shares some personal highlights of the event. DUT and MUT partnered in the spirit of collaboration to bring together public universities in South Africa to engage on ...more
Time To Say Goodbye.....!
- I love that song as performed by Andrea Bocelli! And I also love most things Bocelli!! But this time the title above is a lot more personal. As of 24:00 (or 00:00) on 31st December 2019 I will cease to be an employee of CPUT after 39 years of quite an interesting ride. Why work so ...more
Entomophagy - it's an Edible Insect Thing!
- A few years ago, the Agrifood Technology Station was approached by a grower of insects that were used to produce animal feed. In this case, the request was to assist with producing food for human consumption using the insect. And immediately upon writing this, I know that the Yuck! factor kicks in ….. that feeling ...more
A Cultural Exchange with the Attaqua Community!
- In the realm of Food Science & Technology, the primary field in which the Station operates, one often needs to work with different cultures, bacteria mostly, as was seen with the listeriosis outbreak in South Africa. Fortunately, the exchange referred to above was a much more pleasant exercise. The Station was honored to host a delegation from the Attaqua Community ...more
Setting Up A Small Consultancy in the Food Industry
- ATS recently had a poser put to it by a client in terms of sourcing a consultant to assist them with producing a specific sauce. Our usual go-to response is by using our database of consultants whom we know are active in the field. This time round we decided to use a different route as an experiment based on ...more
How Valuable are Long, Face-to-Face Meetings in Today's World?
- In my long working life, and as I had climbed the "corporate" academic ladder to moderate heights, the increase in "meeting time" and the value thereof became a challenge. The challenge was specifically in enduring these and also accepting the value (or most times the lack thereof) in them. Now, get me straight: there are quite ...more
Interaction with Not For Profit Entities & Community Engagement
- Over the last two months the Agrifood Technology Station has had the pleasure of interacting with two entities involved with community engagement, upliftment and creating employment. Beside the Technology Innovation Agency mandate for Technology Stations overtly being Innovation Support and Technology Transfer, a less emphasized element of the overall mandate is that of collaboration with ...more
Something's Brewing in the Food Science and Technology Building at CPUT!
- In 2014, a few novice brewers , including staff and students, knocked together a special brew for the national Inter-varsity brewing competition. And they won a prize for their Rooibru. This was an interesting start to what is now an amazing journey for the personnel involved as they have grown, honed and improved their skills ...more
Indigenous Knowledge Systems Documentation Centre - a Mouthful of Heritage!
- The national Department of Science & Technology has a specific directorate (Knowledge Management Systems) managing and documenting indigenous knowledge. The Western Cape Indigenous Knowledge Systems Documentation Centre (IKSDC) was previously managed by a Not for Profit agency and, as of 2018, had been transferred to CPUT under the aegis of the Agrifood Technology Station. The ...more
Food SMEs and the Fourth Industrial Revolution - Do you want to join us on a project?
- This is a call to Small and Medium food enterprises. The Agrifood Technology Station wishes to generate a project(s) regarding the implementation of the Internet of Things (IoT) and 4IR concept to your factory floor. This would involve doing a baseline assessment of the data you collect during your manufacturing process and then also identifying/ suggesting ...more
Look at the Expertise in our “Grey Knowledge” Database
- ATS recently completed a funded project related to creating a database of retired experts in the broader food industry. The intention of this was to gather willing consulting candidates who would commit to help ATS in assisting SMMEs in the field. ATS always disclaims being the holder of all knowledge and expertise in this broad ...more
Is ATS good at communicating science?
- Before we answer this question, let’s first contextualize the structure, mandate and operating procedures of the Agrifood Technology Station. The Station consists of seven technical staff members, an Administrator and a Finance Officer. Our mandate is innovation support to SMEs in the food industry and also technology transfer and training. In our set of Standard ...more
Good Fad, Bad Food! Or?
- When you do a simple Google search regarding good and bad food, the anecdotal evidence sometimes offered is seriously contradictory and often mis-leading. Proponents of one food versus another often end up either contradicting themselves or others. When doing a more scientific appraisal (more objective but not always entirely so), another theme comes up i.e. what ...more
FoodForward SA - Community Engagement with ATS
- The Agrifood Technology Station has had the pleasure of meeting with a not for profit organization, focused on surplus food recovery, called FoodForward SA (FFSA), in the last period. To find out more about them, please click on the link to visit their website. Suffice to say that it is a noble enterprise that is ...more
AGRIFOOD TECHNOLOGY STATION - HOW IT COSTS ITS SERVICES
- This may be a boring topic for some, especially if you do not use the services of ATS. It is lengthy but is packed with detail for those who use our services or who may wish to do so. However, in the interests of open communication, here goes! Circumstances have dictated that we clarify our position ...more
ADDING VALUE TO FOOD NPD IN ACADEMIA
- The use of new food product development as a capstone project for most (if not all) tertiary qualifications in Food Science and/or Technology is well over 25 years old in South Africa. From very small beginnings it has blossomed into a significant part of the training programme. It is one of the key elements in ...more
UNITS AND LANGUAGE
- Do you remember starting school and the point where you started learning about TENS and UNITS? If you do then you are quite young! The point here being the word UNIT(S). It’s a simple English word but with many different interpretations once you start dissecting it. What is a UNIT and how do you describe ...more
DO WE NEED TOTAL RECALL AS A LEARNING TOOL?
- Someone recently asked me to explain what the Cahn Ingold Prelog rules were!!! I could not! I have a vague recollection of it, as I should, based on my training and experiences many years ago. I knew it had to do with organic chemistry and that it dealt with nomenclature, especially that related to stereoisomers…….but ...more
WHY DO RETAILERS COOL BEVERAGES?
- It was 2008, that wonderful time when your electricity supply was cut under the name of load shedding! Cold evening meals, darker nights with a degree of romanticism for some, or downright fear for the achluophobic (you guessed it, the name for people scared of the dark). and also unscheduled braais. It had struck me at ...more
AGRIFOOD INTERNSHIPS - POLISHING THE DIAMONDS OF THE FUTURE
- What is an Internship? I suppose it depends on who you ask and in what industry sector placements happen. In the case of the Agrifood Technology Station, an Intern is a recently qualified graduate, preferably in Food Science & Technology (or Analytical Chemistry or other field as required). Our Internship programme has been running for more ...more
LISTERIA AND THE CONTROLLING CAVALRY ON THE SHOP FLOOR
- The food safety scenario in South Africa has, by virtue of the sad consequences of the outbreak, been given a violent shake-up. The ripple effect of this will be felt much further than the companies potentially implicated as the source of the products contributing to this. However, this blog serves to look a little deeper ...more
FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION (4IR) AND THE FOOD INDUSTRY
- Recently CPUT had, as part of its strategic planning, itemised the concept of a Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) as a key part of its future plans. This implies both preparing for, and exploiting, this concept. The question then arose, as part of our own strategic planning exercise at ATS, how we and other departments should ...more
THE FOOD INNOVATION CHASM AND GREY KNOWLEDGE – A LINK
- I had recently placed a post on the CPUT Food Technology Facebook page (for Alumni, feel free to join it since it is a page since it is a valuable tool for networking). The post itself dealt with grey knowledge (or retirees in the industry to be more precise) but there is a bigger picture to ...more
SAVING WATER AT FOOD SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
- This topic is on everyone’s tongue due to the extent, impact and uncertainties of such a one in a hundred year drought. Ways to save water, and new sources of water, are the order of the day on all media platforms and from all agencies. The most recent thrust deals with your water usage at ...more
FOOD ENTREPRENEURSHIP – AN EXPERIMENT!
- The Station produced a book for new entrants to the food industry entitled “So, you want to start a food company?”. As luck would have it, the Department of Agriculture (Western Cape) offered to polish, translate and print the document in all three official languages as part of their Project Khulisa. Ms. Helen Heynes of ...more