Making science popular to the masses has always had its problems. The image of the geek — an overly studious science boffin with no fashion sense or friends — has not exactly helped. Thankfully, the dawn of the digital age has changed the way the public regards science and technology, and today science is generally considered way cooler than it was a couple of short decades ago.
Children across the world are hooked up to the Internet, intimate with bluetooth technology and are absolute wizzes on anything with a memory stick, hard drive or wi-fi, often leaving their parents dazed and confused.
And in South Africa, science has become a powerful empowerment tool for the previously disadvantaged, with projects like the Technology and Human Resources for Industry Programme (Thrip) helping to make technological advancement relevant and accessible to those who need it the most.
The task of helping to keep Âscience and technology in the limelight falls to the South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement (Saasta), an agency of the National Research Foundation (NRF).
The NRF, which also funds Thrip, is the key public entity responsible for supporting human resource capacity for research, technology and innovation development in the fields of science and technology. It sounds a mouthful but in real terms it is helping to make a lasting and sustainable difference to the lives of millions of people in our country, especially those in rural areas who traditionally have not had access to the kind of advances urban South Africans take for granted.
Saasta’s mandate is to advance public awareness, appreciation and engagement of science, engineering and technology in South Africa.
Foremost in this drive to open Âscience up to the masses is improving the exposure to maths, science and technology at grassroots level at schools across the country. By building the quantity and quality of the teaching of these subjects, Saasta is investing in future human capital and helping to create the scientists of tomorrow.
Through its education unit, Saasta aims to implement, develop and manage projects and initiatives which will in turn promote a culture of science, engineering and technology and interaction between science and society.
In conjunction with the science and technology department, Saasta will be promoting four science-themed months this year — June is Antarctica Month; August Marine Biosciences Month; September African Origins Month and October is Astronomy Month.