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Day: September 3, 2018

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A rapid test for germination

If you have ever wondered about how to ruin the perfect beer, the answer is barley. Dormant grains and uneven germination of barley seeds result in unevenly modified malts that have an unpleasant flavour. Mr Charles Glass wouldn’t be very impressed with that, would he?

In preparation of a Better World by 2025, the SAB is moving towards smart agriculture by connecting thousands of farmers to technologies and skills. In this case, the technology is the rapid screening of barley seeds, and the skilled innovation specialist in the biotechnology, chemical and applied sciences space – Joseph Walker.

There are many strict protocols followed in creating the perfect brew. One of them is ensuring that the barley seeds have germinated when transported to the brewing house. Uneven germination does not only result in unpleasant flavour, it is also a financial loss.

If the seeds have germinated when they are weighed on the truck, it means that they will rot and the load will be rendered as useless. Joseph Walker has been working on a new technology that will replace the current testing method.

Walker explained that the test is similar to a pregnancy test and will be just as easy to use. He went on to state that the project is still in the intermediate stage, where he is still working with pure chemicals to represent what happens in nature in order to prove that the technology is viable. If successful, the process will replace the current method.

In a country that spends 2.1% of its household spending on beer, all necessary measures must be taken to continuously produce perfect ‘cold ones’. Resolution Circle cannot wait to see Walker’s technology save the agriculture sector millions of rands in seed loss; and with 2025 fast approaching, we also cannot wait to see the SAB align their environmental, social and alcohol responsibility to make the world a better place.

Besides being a training hub that focused on skills development and providing skills development in the engineering sector, Resolution Circle is also keen on engineering technology. Find out more about us here: https://resolutioncircle.co.za.www1.jnb2.host-h.net/

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The future of engineering is female

“Only 11% of all engineers globally are females. And women are still totally under-represented in the engineering industry with the number of female engineering graduates below 20% in many countries.” This is according to Naadiya Moosajee, the co-founder of WomEng, a South African social enterprise that is now operating in at least 13 countries.

As a training hub, the question of how we prepare females for a male-dominated industry is one that is rarely spoken about. Now that it has come up, here is one way to look at it: yes, we have females that play soccer, but, they don’t play on the same team as men. Therefore, how do we prepare the women we train to play on the same team as men?

We sat down with Phemeza Bukeka, an electrical engineer by education, and P2 alumni at Resolution Circle. Phumeza is due to obtain her Electrical engineering diploma from the Vaal University of Technology soon. Standing tall in her PPE and safety boots, she declared that, although she is yet to enter the industry as a qualified technician, she is happy that more and more women are thriving in engineering.

It is an unspoken rule at Resolution Circle, that everyone who is accepted into the experiential learning programme is treated as a technician and is expected to behave as one. Therefore, everyone on our workplace readiness programme is exposed to six trades (fitting and turning, carpentry, electrical, electronics, automation and boiler making), where they learn basic hand tooling for the first six months and application for another six months.

But, we do live in a country that has clearly defined gender roles. During her interview on a TV show called iSpani, Keneilwe Ntwagae – an Electrical engineering graduate at Vaal Tech and a junior technician at Resolution Circle, talked about being a woman in the engineering industry, she said: “of all the trades I have learnt during my training with Resolution Circle, boiler making was out of my comfort zone.  It is something I never thought I would do and we thought it is for men, but women can do it too”.

Phumeza detailed that working with men is no different from working with women, she said – “during our training, we were never overlooked just because we are women”. Boiler making and welding workshop training instructor – Winston Lawrence also encourages women to explore careers in the engineering sector and emphasises that there are no restrictions whatsoever in the industry.

As Women’s month comes to an end, we at Resolution Circle would like to take a moment to celebrate the women who don safety boots and PPEs to design, develop, test and supervise electrical systems and mechanical and thermal sensors and devices.

Learn more about our workplace readiness workshop training programme and experiential training, head on over to our website: https://resolutioncircle.co.za.www1.jnb2.host-h.net/