Young people do not need to be inspired by abstract notions of role modelling. Show them someone within touching distance from them and you’d have done them a good deed indeed. One such role model is Professor Tshilidzi Marwala, the incoming vice-chancellor at the University of Johannesburg.
At a “youthly” 47, they sure make professors and university principals younger these days. He is a highly decorated engineer but makes the subject real, not a high fallutin’ concept of bombastic words. He acquired the vast majority of his degrees magna cum laude, yet he still speaks like the guy next door, not a high and mighty academic….more