30 May 2003: NSTF Award

NATIONAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY FORUM SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AWARDS 2002

At a gala dinner held at the Sandton Hilton Hotel on Friday 30 May 2003, it was announced that Peter Clayton had won the award for the category "An Individual through Activities other than Research and Innovation over the last two years".

Peter Clayton with the NSTF Science and Technology award.

Link to:
NSTF Press release
Rhodes University announcment of nomination

Nomination Details

Professor Clayton has balanced a research career with coordination and management efforts in capacity building for research, and for promoting the public understanding of SET (Science, Engineering & Technology).

In the past two years, he has grown his own research group at Rhodes University into a leading group nationally, which won an award for outstanding achievement in 2002 from Telkom and other participating Industry partners in the Telkom Centres of Excellence programme.  Rhodes University was named the top performing ICT Centre of Excellence in South Africa.

Professor Clayton and his group have also run a strong research partnership with the University of Fort Hare, establishing an ICT research culture on that campus where none had existed before, and resulting in a self managed centre being launched at Fort Hare University in 2002 with substantial industrial sponsorship.

Four underprivileged township schools have been supported over the past two years by Professor Clayton's group, who have provided Internet connectivity, computers, and technical support.  One of these schools (Nathanial Nyalusa) has won an international web design competition (winning themselves a lab of computers), and has been twinned with a school in Italy, resulting in the exchange of pupils between the schools.

Professor Clayton has participated in a number of forums for the promotion of the public understanding of Science and Technology, the most notable of these being the Sasol SciFest, of which he is a founding member and has been chairman of the advisory committee for the past 3 years.  This annual festival grew to 558 events in 2002 attended by 45 000 participants.