“And the winners were…”

The scores from the adjudication sheets were added up by the panel and prizes were awarded to the top three presentations. The first prize and the People’s Choice award went to Loyiso Dunga from the University of Cape Town (UCT) for his presentation titled “Mapping and assessing ecosystem conditions of South African kelp forests”. The second prize went to Zolile Maseko, a PhD candidate at Rhodes University, for his presentation on “The distribution of two Eccritotarsus spp., biological control agents of water hyacinth in South Africa”. The third prize was awarded to Tania Moyikwa from UCT for her presentation titled “Resonance between traditional ecological knowledge and scientific findings about climate and environmental change along the east coast of South Africa”.

Although only three winners could be chosen, the delegates expressed their gratitude to their peers, guests, adjudicators, the GSN Committee and SAEON at large for affording them the opportunity to interact and present their work at the SAEON GSN Indibano 2018.

Prishani Boodraj, an MSc candidate at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, said, “I was nervous before the presentation, but it was great to present and listen to everyone. It was a nice experience; the judges were so approachable.”

Dedricks Morake, a PhD candidate at UCT, said, “I have learnt a lot from this conference and from the workshops and interacting with everyone.”

Tania Moyikwa, who won third prize for her presentation, started working on her presentation a day before she had to present. During the presentation she was nervous and went on to say, “Everyone gets nervous, I can’t fix nerves, but I can try to accept the situation.”

Former president Thabo Mbeki once said in his speech at the African Student Leadership Summit: “As students [our] principal task is to acquire knowledge as well as the capacity to generate new knowledge”. Although only a small number of postgraduate students are selected to attend the annual Indibano, the GSN Committee hopes that the delegates will share the knowledge and skills they gained from this year's Indibano with their peers at their universities and institutions and have a long-lasting impact on their development as emerging scientists.