INDUSTRY COLLABORATION
The Mineral Council’s Senior Executive: Modernisation and Safety, Sietse van der Woude, presented findings on the progress and prospects of the 4IR. The event was attended by industry experts, mining alumni, lecturers and students.
Delegates from the Department of Labour responsible for inspecting accidents in public infrastructure and related mining incidents were exposed to VR as a tool to examine accidents and improve the quality of analysis.
Students from the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) visited the Department’s VR facility, where they were exposed to the changing technological landscape and new ways of doing business in the 4IR.
Dr George Maluleke, Senior Manager: Projects at Kumba Iron Ore delivered a presentation to the final-year Mine Design students about the company’s community resettlement project from Dingleton to Siyathemba. The project saw Kumba Iron Ore move about 3 400 people from Dingleton, which is about 20 km outside Kathu, to Siyathemba. The company built the new suburb from scratch so that the Kumba Sishen mine could extend its operations to the Dingleton area. Siyathemba means “we hope”, and the new suburb has its own community centre, police station and clinic. The Department is proud to count Kumba Iron Ore among its long-term strategic partners. In this regard, delegates from the Kumba Iron Ore Professional in Training Programme also attended a leadership presentation by Prof Ronny Webber-Youngman and Dr Theunis Otto, in addition to visiting the Department’s VR facility. Dr George Maluleke (left) and Dr Johann Uys
Thanks to a sponsorship from Harmony Gold, five of the Department’s postgraduate students were granted the opportunity to attend the Mining Indaba 2020 in Cape Town. Prof Ronny Webber-Youngman also served on the Young Leaders Programme discussion panel.
DEPARTMENT OF MINING ENGINEERING
The Department hosted its successful Annual Golf Day at Pretoria Country Club on 24 January 2020. The event was sponsored by Sandvik, Komatsu, Harmony, Detnet, GigaJoule and InHouse. The seventh Annual Golf Day is scheduled for January 2021.
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ANNUAL REVIEW 2019/20
