South African students from different universities will represent the country at the International Student Cluster Competition hosted at the 2018 International Supercomputing Conference in Germany. The students came first at a national competition which took place during the annual Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) conference in Pretoria last week.  
Watch the interview here.[YouTube]

The next industrial revolution must be inclusive and the science community must ensure that young people are empowered to participate, says Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa. The Deputy President addressed thousands of people who packed the CSIR International Convention Centre today, for the first day of the Science Forum South Africa (SFSA) 2017, joined by the Minister of Science and Technology, Naledi Pandor.

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is celebrating 10 years of conducting world-class research and development in the field of nanotechnology. The CSIR’s National Centre for Nanostructured Materials (NCNSM) was launched in 2007 as part of the implementation of government’s National Nanotechnology Strategy. Nanotechnology research is a key pillar of the CSIR’s activities that is focussed on finding solutions that address the broader societal challenges of South Africa.

The South African Weather Service (SAWS), an entity of the Department of Environmental Affairs, and the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC), funded by the Department of Science and Technology under the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, have signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) aimed at supporting the two organisations in delivering on their mandates.

The Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Rob Davies,  addressed scientists, engineers and researchers from public and private sector at the 6th CSIR Conference that took place on 5 and 6 October 2017 at the CSIR International Convention Centre in Pretoria. Minister Rob Davies emphasised that in order for South Africa to be globally competitive, it needs to find new ways of boosting the economy through industrial development.

Presentations for download:

• Day 1 presentations: 5 October 2017
• Day 2 presentations: 6 October 2017

The 2nd edition of the Climate Risk and Vulnerability handbook was launched on 5 October at the CSIR 6th Biennial Conference in Pretoria. Highlighting the costs of weather-related disasters between 1980 and 2015 in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), this latest rendition of the critically acclaimed handbook points out that the costs of damages amounted to 10 billion USD, affecting millions of people.

Dr Sibusisiwe Khuluse-Makhanya has become the first black female researcher at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to obtain a PhD in spatial statistics.

Her PhD, which is titled Spatial Statistical Modelling of Urban Particulate Matter, was conferred at a graduation ceremony at the University of Twente in the Netherlands.

On Tuesday, 20 June 2017, the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE) and the Centre for High Performance Computing, South Africa (CHPC) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at the PRACE booth at International Supercomputing Conference 2017.

Team South Africa has taken second prize in the prestigious International Student Cluster Competition, which was held at the International Supercomputing Conference in Frankfurt, Germany. The results were announced on 21 June 2017, following three days of immense hard work by 12 international teams.