Mr Kevin Govender, the Chairperson: Scifest Africa Scientific Advisory Committee
Ms Louisa Clayton, the Executive Director of the Grahamstown Foundation
Ms Anja Fourie, the Director of SciFest Africa
The Honourable Mr Zamuxolo Peter, Executive Mayor of Makana Municipality
HE Ms Judith Macgregor, British High Commissioner to South Africa
Mr Teddy B. Taylor, United States Consul-General
Dr Ellen Stofan, NASA Chief Scientist
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen.
It’s a pleasure to be here today.
I've just returned from Brazil where I attended a meeting of BRICS science ministers. Itis widely recognized that the BRICS partners are in the forefront of global advances in space exploration. Russia, we all know, started space exploration with the launch of "Sputnik" in 1959, and also put the first man, Yuri Gagarin, into Earth's orbit in 1961.
I was reminded by the Russian deputy minister that it's 50 years sinceahumanfirst walked in space.
On March 18 1965, 30 year old Russian cosmonaut Alexey Leonov went fora 12 minute spacewalk.He wore a space suit and he had a rope to ensure that he did not drift away from the mothership. He was really taking a step into the unknown. After ten minutes his suit expanded and blew up like a balloon. He was in serious trouble. He let air into the suit and risked decompression sickness. Then he pulled himself back on board. He survived.
Much has changed over the last fifty years, but astronauts still wear space suits. Now they are made of new materials influenced by new technologies. In our Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) we are hard at work on new materials and new technologies to overcome the many challenges faced in space exploration.
The theme for Scifest Africa 2015is “sciencealight”.
In choosing this theme Scifest Africa joins other countries in celebrating 2015 as United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO's) International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies.Through this science festival and other initiatives yet to take place in the next seven months, South Africa will be part of a worldwide celebration of light and its contributions to the well-being of humankind.
I was privileged to be in Paris earlier this year at the official launch of the 'year of light'. I was reminded how important light is not only to my and your personal well being but also to key technologies that we take for granted - mobile phones, radio, television. These technologies are based on a theory about electromagnetic waves that was first published one hundred and fifty years ago by James Clerk Maxwell.
Prior to this there were technologies based on electromagnetism - for example the telegraph (thefirst high-speed global telecommunications system) - but we didn't understand the science. We didn't understand why electromagnetism worked. We didn't know how electric and magnetic forces were transmitted through space. Because we didn't know the science, we didn't know how to fix the problems that the technologies ran into, like overheating wires or sound distortion.
There was another imponderable as well at the time Maxwell was developing his theory. What was light made of when it travelled through space at finite speed? Maxwell had an idea about this as well. Using maths, he worked out
that electromagnetic signals are communicated through space as wavestravelling at the speed of light.
In 1888, nearly 25 years after Maxwell’s theory was published, the German physicist Heinrich Hertz succeeded inproducing the first deliberately engineered radio waves.
A few decades later we had a new technology called the radio.
Today, electromagnetism allowsus to light the darkness (through electricity) and to communicate over distance throughtelephone (mobile and fixed line), throughradio and through television.
It’s also allowed us to developx-rays and magnetic resonance imaging, and to observe the universe through telescopes, not just in visible light but at radio wavelengths. This in turn allowed us to develop radio astronomy, and a new mega science infrastructure called the SKA that will allow us to develop new technologies that we have not yet even begun to conceive.
You, as young South Africans, are in poll position to take advantage of these new technologies. But you won't be able to take advantage if you don't excel at science and maths.
Governmentis working hard to ensure that more young people study science and mathematics. I'm pleased to see that the Dinaledi schools conditional grant was replaced in the 2015 budget by a more comprehensive programme of support to schools to improve teaching and learning outcomes in maths, science and technology.
The Scifest, our DST supported science centres, and our national science week all serve the objective of expanding science access and awareness.All of these initiatives affirm that the success of our endeavours depends on the development of a science, engineering and technology human-capital pipeline that starts at the schooling level.These multi stakeholder driven science, engineering and technology awareness campaigns, which include science festivals, are the best way to create excitement among pupils.
Another way of creating excitement is to break a world record. The Bloodhound world land speed record attempt in the Northern Cape later this year has already created global excitement not only amongst lovers of speed but also among scientists of all kinds. You can see a scale model of the Bloodhoundhere today. Itis a good example of sci-tech collaboration between the UK (an industrial giant) and SA (an emerging market economic hub) with the involvement of the private sector and professional bodies. Our two countries have a very long history of working together, whetherin arts, sports and culture, health or science, technology and innovation.
The long history of working together is a soundfoundation onwhich to expand, build and explore future collaborations for the decades to come. We are already workingtogether in theexciting fields of biotechnology, lasers and astronomy. I'mpleasedthat South Africawas chosen as the best place to break through the 1,000 mph barrier andproudthat we have the technical know-how to provide the necessary support to the Bloodhoundteam.
I read with interest what Wing Commander Green, the current land-speed record holder and the Bloodhounddriver, said in one interview. He notedthat aeroplanes first started flying faster than cars in 1913 and that Bloodhound will be the first car to drive faster than a plane over 100 years later. He comes from a long line of English adventurers, and others likeAlexey Leonovwho first walked in space or Neil Armstrong who first walked on the moon.
I would like to welcomethe NASA delegationto the Science Festivaland thank you forjoiningthe event this year. You are an inspiration to South Africans and I'm sure that young people here today are keen to learn from you about space science, satellite engineering and the benefits that we can derive from space technologies.
With these few words, I declare Scifest Africa 2015, officially open.
