A second year Statistics Masters student, Babalwa Falteni, is participating in the 2021 FameLab programme that starts today online and will end tomorrow.  The event, hosted by Jive Media Africa, will involve a day of public speaking training, followed by the competition stage on the second day.  This will involve each participant giving a three-minute research presentation, which is scaled and reformulated for reception by the general public. 

FameLab is an international event, and national finalist receives an all-expenses paid trip to the international master classes and final at Cheltenham Science Festival, UK. For more information on FameLab and FameLab South Africa, visit https://www.britishcouncil.org.za/famelab and https://www.saasta.ac.za/competitions/famelab/.

Babalwa is participating in the two-day FameLab event and she is funded by the DSI- NRF Centre of Excellence in Mathematical and Statistical Science (CoE-MaSS). “They encourage all their students to participate in the programme so that’s how I found out about this competition and decided to join it. I was more than happy to be part of this initiative that uplifts the science community,” she said.

The Bhisho-born student said she is hoping to showcase her skills and talent but most importantly to learn from the experience.

The first round of the competition will take place across different institutions in the country. Each speaker will be judged on the three criteria: content, clarity and charisma. The semi-finalists will compete on a national level and a winner of FameLab SA will present the country on a global state at international finals.

The Competition is sponsored by the CoE-MaSS, the Centre of Excellence in Paleosciences, and the National e-Science Postgraduate Teaching and Training Platform.