I am a scientist. Specifically, I am a physicist, even more specifically a cosmologist. I consider myself incredibly lucky to be a scientist because I go through life understanding most of what is around me and I wouldn’t want to understand less. When I don’t understand something, I immediately feel…

I am vulnerable. I am on chemotherapy. I am hiding from covid-19. The few strands of hair on my pale scalp shiver at the slightest draft. So do I. A small breath of wind from the world outside and a special kind of cold runs down my spine. A threat…

“O jewa ke eng?” Africa is known for its challenges- so how come we’re (mostly) keeping it together? Empathy and kindness. “O jewa ke eng?” Was a simple tweet posted in January 2019 by an 18-year old student. The phrase, in Sotho, means “What’s eating you up?”, or “What’s bothering you? “ the response was overwhelming. People…

Perspectives from Astronomy This is based on a keynote address at the 2019 Postdoctoral Researcher day at Stellenbosch University. The context of this address is the interplay between the scientific excellence generated in South Africa and the imperatives for development and the socio-economic challenges facing the country. The first thing to do is…

This is a tale of generosity and kindness. A few weeks ago, on a Saturday morning, usually spent having a lazy breakfast and having fun with the kids, I started getting a number of notifications from the same name on various social media platforms. On a weekend such notifications don’t…

This is a write-up of a webinar I gave the Royal Academy of Engineering 2018 Africa Prize shortlisted entrepreneurs on May 29, 2018. Context The African continent is a very special place to do business. As a entrepreneurial economy, Africa can sometimes be overlooked, but then it takes the world by…

I was invited to speak at a Future Females event about 2018 Tech Trends. Future Females is a movement of female entrepreneurs, current and aspiring. The sort of women I deeply admire, so I was really honoured to be asked to come and speak. …

A BRICS perspective — This is based on a talk I gave at the 1st BRICS Innovation Collaboration Forum on ICT and HPC on 26 April 2017 at Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, China where I was part of a delegation representing South Africa. Big Technology Context: We spent a few fascinating days delving into various high performance…

Monitoring and evaluating the performance of drugs in the age of Big Data — This is a write-up of a TechTalk I gave in April in Cape Town and which looks at ways Big Data could impact the pharmaceutical industry, while raising issues that hold this back. Drugs: from idea to market We first need to understand how drugs are created and brought to market. It is a complex…