At a gathering of great minds competing to come up with solutions for a better and more sustainable world, three UCT students shot the lights out!
Global (18 November 2024) — Students from the University of Cape Town represented South Africa brilliantly with bright ideas at the 2024 SDG Olympiad held in Paris! This after their epic opportunity to attend the SDG Summer School in Geneva where ‘innovation’ was always the order of the day.
While the SDG Summer School offered the young minds a chance to further their knowledge and collaborate with others working toward a better future for the planet (SDG means Sustainable Development Goals as relevant to the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda), the Olympiad brought matters to an exciting boiling point.
Students Danjelle Midgley, Nadine Nyamangirazi and Precious Chidanyika shot the lights out both at the Summer School and the subsequent Olympiad; making their university proud.
Under the 2024 theme ‘Planetary Health’, participants were challenged to cook up innovative solutions to global challenges with a focus on both social and environmental impact unique to their specific ideas.
Empowering High-Schoolers with Simplicity
UCT’s Danjelle led a knock-out team whose project Planetary Predictor ended up taking first place at Summer School. As an environmental attorney and PhD student, Danjelle’s input was imperative to developing the Planetary Predictor—an educational platform and resource that sought to connect with young people.
The platform was designed to be used by high school learners between the ages of 15 and 18 in an effort to help them run climate simulations, answer questions related to global warming and learn more about planetary health; thus simplifying what is often a complex topic!
Through data from the University of Oxford’s climatepredication.net project, the high school students would be able to engage with topics of planetary health in a way that furthers their understanding—an imperative tool for a world they will one day lead.
At the SDG Olympiad, the Planetary Predictor held its own and claimed a bronze medal out of 150 other projects and went on to win a UNICEF special award.
Local Communities Are Key
Law PhD student and lecturer Nadine went on to win “Best Contribution to Integrating Local Knowledge and Community Needs into Climate Risk Information and Solutions” for her work!
Challenged to come up with innovate ideas in the worlds of local community engagements and climate change monitoring, Nadine’s team SEEN (Social Ecology Education Network) were hard at work figuring out ways to adapt a citizen science project to data collection for climate change impacts and natural solutions.
“The recognition [of the award] was a proud moment for our team, highlighting the significance of combining scientific and technological expertise with the lived experiences of local communities,” Nadine said.
Mitigating Climate Change Effects on Global Health and Igniting Hope
As for Precious, the master’s student at the African Climate and Development Initiative, the focus of Summer School was on anti-malaria coalition projects.
Her task was to find ways to engage the youth when it comes to understanding and monitoring climate change effects on climate sensitive diseases through the use of an open-source crowdsourcing platform.
Precious’s team went on to win “Best Contribution to Mitigating Climate Change Effects on Global Health” at Summer School and at the Olympiad!
For the UCT student, the experience was particularly special as it ignited a feeling we all need in a world where the future of our planet hangs in the balance.
Precious shares:
“This experience was so important for me as it gave me hope for the world as 18 international students came together to try their best working for a whole month and come up with solutions that could be implemented.”
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