Consumed with the wonders of science
– Lisa Witepski I
t is not often that young people think about the role that science plays in their lives – how it is thanks to science that we are able to microwave our food,
for example, or how gravity affects a soccer match. That is precisely why South Africa’s youngest science entrepreneur established the Stuart Ntlathi Science, Engineering and Technology (SNSET) Institute; to get the youth thinking.
Ntlathi himself has been consumed with the wonders of science from a young age. In fact, he recalls, at the age of thirteen he started participating in science festivals – one of very few black children from the North West province to do so.
What made him pursue a path that few others were keen to tread? It all came down to realising what was made possible by science, Ntlathi explains. “At the time, I used recycled materials to create a microwave griller. It was the first microwave griller in the world.”
Thrilled by the possibilities and potential he was only just discovering, Ntlathi was eager to help his peers uncover their own interest in science, and so started an after-school science club. “That is how the Institute got its start,” he says, “with four young boys doing experiments.”
By 2000, Ntlathi realised that it was time for the club to evolve. South Africa’s Apartheid isolation had come to
an
end, and the country was being flooded by exciting new technologies. Yet, at the same time, government appeared to be focusing firmly on arts and culture rather than science. Ntlathi was determined to find a way to help others share his wonder, and thus began the process of formalising his science club to create the Institute.
Since then, more than 30 000 children have been touched in some way by the Institute, with a further 2 000 participating in its several programmes.
44 Management Today | December 2011
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