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New SAIEE Centres in SASOL Territory
One of the objectives of the SAIEE that has been mentioned
in the past is the establishment of SAIEE Centres around
the country. The Institute Constitution allows for this
and encourages their formation provided the request is
submitted to the Council by a minimum of 10 Senior Members and
Fellows. It happens that there are some 66 members of the Institute
who are employed by Sasol. These are distributed around Sasolburg in
the Vaal Triangle and Secunda in Mpumalanga. An informal meeting
in 2007 decided that two Centres should be formed to cater for these
members and other members from companies like Eskom. It should be
noted that both Sasol and Eskom activities are located in areas where
there are large coal deposits as coal is the main raw material for the
manufacture of petroleum and electricity.
The main drivers for this initiative are Keven Semple from
Sasolburg and Dr Grant Muller from Secunda. They organized to
show DVDs of the Bernard Price Memorial Lecture on the 15th April
in Sasol and 22nd April in Secunda and to collect signatures from
attendees. They were able to collect more than 10 signatures in each
area from members of Senior Member and Fellow grades. These lists
were submitted to the SAIEE Council on May 9th and permission
was granted for the formation of two Centres in the Vaal Triangle and
Mpumalanga.
This initiative has full blessing from Sasol top management
and Fig 1 (bottom left) shows (L to R) Ian McKechnie (Past
President SAIEE), Theuns Erasmus (Manager Electrical Function,
Sasol Technology) and Keven Semple (Principal Engineer Sasol
Technology) and Mike Crouch (SAIEE) on 15 April. Fig 2 (bottom
right) shows Theuns Erasmus, Ian McKechnie and Dr Grant Muller
(Chief Engineer, Sasol Technology) at the show on 22 April. Both
shows were well attended and drinks and snacks were kindly provided
after each show by Sasol.
The formation of Centre committees in these areas will now go
ahead and chairmen will be elected by the committees. We wish these
Centres many interesting and successful events.
University of the Witwatersrand
Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment Prize Giving May 2008
The SAIEE presents an annual prize at Wits to the “Best
third year student in electrical engineering” and I had the
honour to attend the prize giving to present the prize. Quite
by chance I sat on the stage next to the key note speaker,
a Civil engineer called Danai Magugumela and we have included a
transcript of her address which was full of really excellent advice for
students and graduates. A picture of Danai, taken during her address,
is included.
The SAIEE prize was won by Adam Pantanowitz and a picture
of him and Mike Crouch, Marketing Director of the SAIEE, is also
included. This event restores one’s faith in the future of our country
where these young professionals, and others like them in other tertiary
institutions, are the answer to a brilliant future for South Africa.
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