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| NMMU Vice-Chancellor's Scholars with Chancellor Santie Botha and Vice-Chancellor Prof Derrick Swartz (centre). |
Today’s ever-changing world means what was good enough yesterday is no longer good enough today. Instead, today’s generation must strive far beyond top marks.
Ask the Chancellor herself.
The former South African Business Woman of the Year works in our volatile, uncertain, ever-changing world … a far cry from the one in which she grew up when a degree guaranteed you a decent job.
Now, says Ms Botha, only the fittest, creative out of the box thinkers, entrepreneurs and true innovators are successful.
“You won’t be boarding trains with tickets, you’ll be jumping out of airplanes,” Ms Botha told the 26 Vice-Chancellor’s Scholars, their parents and NMMU staff at the Awards Dinner to recognise their achievement in being selected to the R82 782-a-year bursary.
“Success is no longer about playing it safe.”
Instead, she continued at the prestigious event in the university’s Indoor Sports Centre, it’s about getting involved beyond your books, showing what you can give and by providing solutions to the likes of our ailing global economy, crime, terrorism, climate change, poverty, disease … (no pressure, guys!)
To do this, you need:
1. The ability to add true value
2. The capacity to try new things
3. An appetite for risk and
4. The acceptance of trial and error as a career strategy.
Ultimately, to succeed in a world that is going to bulge to three billion within the two decades with a massive middle class, today’s students are going to have to add real value in whatever field they find themselves in.
Are you up to it?
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| VC Scholars (back from left) Mylon Jonas, Ruan Olivier, (front) Carla Barnard, Anandi Botha and Sumaiya Moses |
*Full transcript of Chancellor’s address at the Vice-Chancellor’s Scholarship Awards Dinner
I would like to start by congratulating every one of the students here this evening on being a deserving winner. It is an honour to have students of your calibre at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University to specialise in your chosen fields. I would also like to congratulate you on your excellent choice of university. I can assure you, that wherever you might end up working in the world one day, you will never have to explain where Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University is situated or which country you are from.
Also, as you have chosen the only university in the world that carries the name of the greatest leader of all time, Mr Nelson Mandela … I would like to give you one of his famous quotes…’A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination. There are very few misfortunes in the world that you cannot turn into a personal triumph if you have the iron will and the necessary skill. It is what we make of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another’.
My request to you is that as young achievers and potential leaders in your respective fields and also of our beloved country and beyond…that you don’t only look at what Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University can give to you but also what YOU can give back to the university. What I mean when I say that is that you don’t only excel in your academic studies but that you get involved …. In community work, in sport, in research and truly make a difference to other people’s lives, your own life and ultimately, make NMMU the university where all top achievers want to be. Because this will prepare you even more for the world of work when you leave here.
Because we live in the right-brain society today. Where it is about survival of the fittest, creative out of the box thinkers, entrepreneurs, true innovators. People who question the status quo…irrespective of the kind of discipline that you are in. To always ask the critical questions and improve on the answers. Everybody has a point of view but it’s impossible for everyone to always be right …Think of the global challenges today… an anemic global economy, transnational crime and terrorism, climate change, poverty, disease … and there-in lies the challenge … how to become involved in solving those global challenges and creating a new order..
To succeed in the world to come, you won’t be boarding trains with tickets; you’ll be jumping off planes with parachutes.
We live in fast changing, enormously disruptive times. Success is no longer about playing safe, being predictable, or following schedules. That’s how it was when I was growing up.
There are too many disruptions still afoot to believe in the train metaphor anymore. Digital-mobile-social-technology platforms have already laid waste to a whole range of industries and professions. There are no predictable trains running in media, music, and communication or publishing anymore because the old rules have been overturned by the fact that a billion people now carry connected consumption devices in their pockets.
Watch the heat being turned up even more, as easily used software and mobile hardware takes away a big chunk of what professionals used to see as their bread and butter. Doctors, lawyers, accountants will no longer be able to sell simple processing or basic procedures – they will have to elevate to higher-level advisory roles, or become irrelevant.
In the next two decades, three billion people are expected to be added to the already growing middle class. That’s great for consumption - many sales to be made - but a huge strain on limited resources like food, water, oil. Technological change will have to be even more rapid for the planet to cope with all those extra wallets, mouths and fingers. New forms of energy, synthetic foods and tighter environmental regulation are not just likely – it’s a done deal.
So, you will ask me, what is “safe” in the world of work tomorrow?
The truth is, no one knows. “Safe” work does not exist anymore. In our unpredictable world today, you have to be able to do the following.
1. The ability to add true value, not just simple procedural inputs
2. The capacity to try things out that have never been done before
3. An appetite for risk and
4. The acceptance of trial and error as a career strategy. Thinking out of the box and finding your “own brand and your own way” of doing things in your chosen discipline is a no brainer.
It’s scary stuff, but if it’s any consolation, I am in exactly the same boat. But I know that at the heart of success, it is always about providing genuine, distinctive value to others. And that never changes. What does change, however, is the form and format of delivery with constant re-invention at its core. What is new today is yesterday’s news tomorrow. And that is what I want you to have at the back of your minds as you start your studies.
So in a competitive environment, where you want to win, you always have to push the boundaries. And when you make those big decisions, there is always risk involved. If there is no risk involved, then the decisions are not big enough to start off with. Remember the market today is global…and the war for the best talent is intense. You have to ensure that you become the best that you can ultimately be.
To every parent, teacher and headmaster here this evening, I would like to congratulate and thank you for your support, your love and belief in creating deserving winners and our leaders of tomorrow.
Ndiyabulela nongomso.
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