Author: The Conversation
It has been seven years since students in South Africa began protesting in a bid to “Africanise” the country’s university curricula. They viewed what they were learning as too neoliberal – characterised by Western values pushing the marketisation of education. They wanted universities to become more relevant to students in an African country and more connected to their own lives. The students’ calls propelled “decolonisation” to the forefront of national (and even international) debate. Decolonisation in the university context involves dismantling the institutional practices and policies that uphold white supremacist, Western values. Since then there have been various initiatives at…
By Zeblon Vilakazi, University of the Witwatersrand We live in a world characterised by inequality, poverty, economic volatility, globalisation, climate change and ambiguity. In my own country, South Africa, residents have to navigate socioeconomic and political instability, power and water cuts, homelessness, unethical governance and mediocre or no service delivery. It is a far cry from what the country could be if we brought its best talent and resources to bear for the benefit of humanity. Innovation will be key to any positive changes – and research-intensive universities have a central to play in that innovation. As the University of…
Hydrogen is used mainly to make chemicals such as fertiliser, and in oil refineries. Most hydrogen in the world today is made from natural gas or coal – methods associated with large carbon dioxide emissions. Developed countries are therefore looking to “green hydrogen” instead – produced using renewable electricity such as solar and wind power. Energy experts Rod Crompton and Bruce Young explain green hydrogen’s potential benefits and challenges. What is hydrogen used for? Global hydrogen demand reached 94 million tons in 2021, and contained energy equal to about 2.5% of global final energy consumption. Only about 0.1% of current…
Google and Apple have removed hundreds of apps from their app stores at the request of governments around the world, creating regional disparities in access to mobile apps at a time when many economies are becoming increasingly dependent on them. The mobile phone giants have removed over 200 Chinese apps, including widely downloaded apps like TikTok, at the Indian government’s request in recent years. Similarly, the companies removed LinkedIn, an essential app for professional networking, from Russian app stores at the Russian government’s request. However, access to apps is just one concern. Developers also regionalize apps, meaning they produce different…
The governor of the South African Reserve Bank recently announced an increase in the lending rate by 75 basis points. This means the repo rate (the rate at which the central bank lends money to commercial banks) will increase from 5.5% to 6.25% and the prime rate (the rate commercial banks charge their clients when lending them money) rises from 9.0% to 9.75%. South Africa isn’t alone. Countries across the continent – and the world – have also been hiking rates to manage rising prices. South Africa is the most recent African country to hike rates. Others have included Ghana…
Imagine the following scenario. A phone rings. An office worker answers it and hears his boss, in a panic, tell him that she forgot to transfer money to the new contractor before she left for the day and needs him to do it. She gives him the wire transfer information, and with the money transferred, the crisis has been averted. The worker sits back in his chair, takes a deep breath, and watches as his boss walks in the door. The voice on the other end of the call was not his boss. In fact, it wasn’t even a human.…
Elon Musk’s space tech company SpaceX is rapidly advancing towards its goal of establishing Starlink – a massive satellite network capable of providing high-speed broadband internet across the world. Starlink claims the network is already servicing more than 30 countries with high-speed internet, including the United States, parts of Australia and most of the United Kingdom. There are about 2,500 Starlink satellites in orbit, with plans to eventually create a constellation of 42,000. The satellites are in “low Earth orbit” at an altitude of about 550 kilometres. This relative proximity provides the benefit of low latency (less delay in data…
Last week, the US government released six principles for reforming Big Tech. It’s the latest example of growing efforts to regulate the handful of companies with enormous influence over the internet. But while there’s a growing appetite for a new, better kind of internet, it’s hard to imagine what that might look like. We’ve just published research that looks at one alternative – a social network called Scuttlebutt, which provides an example of a platform that puts people before profit. The internet wasn’t supposed to be like this In the 1990s, many thought the internet would make the world a…
The Woman King is a big-budget Hollywood movie that has been anticipated since 2018, when US star Viola Davis was announced as the lead in the story of the “amazons” of Dahomey. Rising South African star Thuso Mbedu also takes a key role in the film, which has premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and is heading to cinemas worldwide. The action blockbuster is adding to renewed global interest in the historical women warriors of Dahomey, a kingdom that flourished in the 1700s and 1800s in what is today Benin in west Africa. The “amazons” were exceptionally skilful women…
The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea People appear to be more willing to lie for personal gain when they use a laptop versus a smartphone, our new peer-reviewed research shows. Given that the two devices have nearly identical technical capabilities – they’re both boxes with electronic brains – this surprised us and highlights the psychological impact of technology. Our first in a planned series of studies was a version of what economists call the ultimatum game. In the take-it-or-leave-it exercise, one player is told they’ll receive a certain sum of money, some…