MAKING HEADLINES

By: Zakiyah Ebrahim

South Africa will play key role in putting the first woman on the moon

In just a few months, construction will start on a communications facility in Matjiesfontein, situated in the Central Karoo District Municipality, that will assist with NASA's Artemis project. The Artemis project aims to put the first woman and person of colour on the moon by December 2025. Thanks to its location, weather, and existing infrastructure, Matjiesfontein is the ideal location.

SA's universities rank among top 100 in the world for certain subjects – including space science

Four South African universities have ranked among the top 100 schools in nine subjects, according to the Best Global University Ranking for 2022/23 by US News. The rankings looked at the top 2 000 tertiary institutions worldwide. They ranked them with a specific focus on schools' academic research and reputation overall.

The University of Cape Town (UCT) was the most highly-ranked local university, followed by the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), the University of KwaZulu Natal (UKZN) and the University of Pretoria.

UKZN ranked within the top 100 for space science, while the University of Pretoria ranked 58 for plant and animal science. Meanwhile, the Tshwane University of Technology ranked 36 for optics.

1 500 South African youth to receive tech training via ALX Technology training provider ALX kicked off its inaugural tech training initiative in May this year. It aims to train youth in South Africa and the rest of Africa. The company is looking at more than 30 000 youth across the continent.

"By the end of this century, 40% of the world's population will be African. Yet Africa only has 3% of the world's software engineers," said the founder of ALX, Fred Swaniker, as per reporting by Hypertext. Swaniker believes that, given Africa's abundance of young talent, it can help solve the massive global shortage of technology skills.