Speech Night and Prize Giving

On Thursday, 12 October, we held our Speech Night and Prize Giving. Congratulations to all our prize winners! Our guest speaker was Dr Adriana Marais. While many of the prize-winners have reached for the stars academically and in other spheres, our guest speaker has reached for Mars. It was a huge honour and an out of this world experience to meet our guest speaker, a theoretical physicist, author and adventurer.Her award-winning PHD, post doctoral work and research in quantum biology and the origins of life resulted in the 2015 L'Oreal-UNESCO International Rising Talent Award. In 2020, she was among 5 global finalists for Women in Tech's the Most Disruptive Woman in Tech Award.In 2013, Dr Marais was shortlisted as one of 100 astronaut candidates for the Mars One Project planning one-way trips to establish the first human settlement on Mars in 2026. In 2019, however, the Mars One organisation closed. She served as the Head of Innovation at SAP Africa and then founded Proudly Human. The Project is a series of off-grid habitation experiments in the most extreme environments on the planet, in preparation for life on the Moon, Mars and beyond, as well as a resilient future here on Earth. She has visited Antarctica, Norway, deserts in the Middle East and Africa, the Aquarius Reef Base underwater habitat and submarine naval bases on location for Proudly Human’s Off-World Project. Proudly Human will run a series of habitation experiments, building communities and off-grid infrastructure in the most extreme environments on the planet, from the desert, to Antarctica, to under the ocean. Each experiment will last several months, generate exploration-driven innovation and research, and be filmed for a documentary series.She is a member of the South African government advisory task team on the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR). In 2020, Dr Marais was appointed as Chair of Space Sciences for the global partnership TGN founded by the Congolese-Togolese Inventor Manuel Ntumba. She currently serves on the Governing Board and is the Global Chair of Science and Research for the network. She is pursuing a second PhD in economics in team dynamics in extreme environments at the University of Cape Town. Dr Marais is a researcher at the University of Stellenbosch and the National Institute for Theoretical and Computational Sciences, both in South Africa, and the faculty at the Singularity University. Adriana is also a director at the Foundation for Space Development Africa, preparing Africa’s first mission to the Moon, the Africa2Moon Project. She is scientific moderator on space resources with the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator.She has given hundreds of talks to audiences on all seven continents, undertaken TEDx events, and has been featured in various media articles and documentaries including on CNN. Dr Marias said that the reason she wants to explore beyond the world is because the allure of the unknown is more powerful than the comfort of the known.