Keynote Speakers
Prof Bismark Mzubanzi Tyobeka
Principal and Vice-Chancellor – North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa
Former Chief Executive Officer: National Nuclear Regulator, Centurion, South Africa
Prof Tyobeka was appointed Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the North-West University in South Africa. In this role he acts as the Chief Accounting Officer responsible for the execution of the University’s core business, namely, teaching and learning, research and innovation, as well as community engagement. The North-West University is the third largest university in South Africa, and is ranked amongst the top five universities in the country.
Prior to this recent appointment, Dr Tyobeka was appointed by the Minister of Energy as the Chief Executive Officer of the National Nuclear Regulatory of South Africa since September 2013, a position he held until 31 May 2022.
He started his nuclear career 23 years ago as a reactor Physicists at Eskom Enterprises, the South African Electricity Utility Company, before moving on to the roles of Senior Physicist at Eskom Enterprises, Chief Nuclear Engineering Analyst at PBMR Pty Ltd and Nuclear Engineer and Unit Head: Gas-Cooled Reactors at the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA in (Austria, Vienna). During his tenure at the IAEA Dr Tyobeka was also involved in the IAEA team that advises Member States in the development of new nuclear power programmes. He was involved with countries in Africa, South East Asia, Europe and Latin America. He has also been a visiting Scholar at the Nuclear Research and Consultancy Group (Netherlands) and the International Research Associate (Idaho National Laboratory, USA).
Amongst many high profile national and international leadership roles; Prof Tyobeka was the Chairperson of the Council of the North-West University; since March 2017 until March 2022. He previously served as a Member of the University Council, including being a Chairperson of NWU Council’s Transformation Oversight Committee and Executive Committee of Council since November 2014.
Additionally Prof Tyobeka, as an internationally acclaimed nuclear engineering expert currently serves as the Member of the International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group (INSAG) appointed by the IAEA Director-General for the period 2016 – 2020. He also serves as a Chairman of the Regulatory Cooperation Forum under the auspices of the IAEA. He is also a member of the IAEA’s Technical Working Group on Nuclear Knowledge Management. In May 2017 at the International Atomic Energy Agency Headquarters in Vienna, Austria, Prof Tyobeka was elected President of the 6th Review Meeting of Contracting Parties to the Convention on the Safety of Spent Nuclear Fuel Management and Safety of Radioactive Waste Management (Joint Convention). He presided over the 6th Review Meeting during the period 21 May till 01 June 2018 and continued to serve in this capacity for a three year term until May 2021. Prof Tyobeka is currently serving as Adjunct Professor of Nuclear Engineering at the North Carolina State University, and serves as a Member of the Nuclear Engineering Department Advisory Committee (NEDAC) at the same university.
Prof Tyobeka was appointed by the Minister of Trade and Industry as member of the South African Council for the Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction for a period of five years, from 01 July 2019 to 30 June 2024.
He holds a Master’s degree and a PhD in Nuclear Engineering both from the Pennsylvania State University, USA, a Master’s degree in Applied Radiation Science and Technology from North-West University, South Africa, a Master’s degree in Management specializing in Project Management from Colorado Technical University in the USA, and a Bachelors’ degree in Physics and Chemistry from the North West University in South Africa.
Prof Daryl Balia
Prof Daryl Balia, former executive dean of the NWU’s faculty of Theology, was appointed as Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Information Technology and Potchefstroom Campus Operations in 2019 for a fixed term of five years.
Prof Balia, a seasoned church historian, was appointed executive dean at the NWU in 2018. His illustrious career includes, among others, working as dean of the faulty of Theology at the University of Durban-Westville (where he started the Centre for Constructive Theology); international director at the University of Edinburgh and director of institutional planning, transformation and quality assurance of the Central University of Technology in the Free State.
He also served as division head for governance at the Institute for Security Studies in Cape Town, general secretary for the International Association for Religious Freedom in the United Kingdom and chief director for the Public Service Commission.
Prof Balia has extensive experience in project management that includes being at the centre of organising national and international events. He has published several books and reports and has contributed to numerous articles and book chapters in other publications.
He gained extensive experience working with academics, teachers, researchers, and students while developing and maintaining global networks for research, and teaching students (including providing Master’s degree supervision), combined with periods of work and study in Germany, France, the United States, England, Scotland and South Africa. Working cross-culturally has been integral to all the positions he held over the past two decades and he also share wide ranging experiences of interacting with the scientific community in all the continents of the world.
His most critical strength is ’to inspire and unite staff and students’ in educational settings and other contexts as well, coupled with his global connections, government and civil society work experiences, and his personal and professional standing in the academy of learning.
To lead in digital business and information technology innovation is one of his key goals for the NWU to set as a goal for itself. The critical matter of making the unitary structure work in actual practice across all our campuses in line with the national imperatives of social cohesion and diversity planning is paramount in my position as DVC Information Technology and Potchefstroom Campus Operations.
Prof Robert Balfour
Prof John Balfour was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1971 and completed his schooling at Christian Brothers College in Pretoria in 1989. He has worked in higher education since 1994, as a tutor of English, residence sub-warden in Livingstone House, at Rhodes University where he read English and History for a BA, a BA Hons in English (1993), and an HDE in 1994. He enrolled for a Masters degree in English and Education at the University of Natal which was completed with distinction in 1995. Balfour was made the recipient of a Commonwealth Trust Scholarship in 1997 and completed his doctoral degree in English language at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge in 2000. He returned to South Africa in 2000 to take up a post as lecturer in the Department of English Studies at the University of Natal, teaching English Literature, English Language, English for Academic Purposes, and Creative Writing. In 2002 he was appointed as Programme Chair to Language Education in the Faculty of Education and moved to the Edgewood Campus where he taught Academic Literacy at first year and BEd Hons level. In 2004 he was appointed as Acting Head of School at a critical phase in the post-incorporation of Edgewood Teacher Training College with the University Faculty of Education and established an ethos of integration and scholarship, supervising between then and 2016, 8 Doctorates in English language and education, and 5 Masters degrees.
Appointed Associate Professor in 2005, and Head of the new School of Languages Education in a restructured Faculty (in the newly merged University of Durban-Westville and University of Natal into the University of KwaZulu-Natal), Balfour went on to transform the School, holding office for two terms as Head of School, before being appointed as Registrar to St Augustine College of South Africa from 2008-2010 where he helped facilitate the establishment of the undergraduate programmes (BTh, BCom, BA) and the development of the administration. He was Honorary Professor of Education in the School of Education Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal until 2015 (and was reappointed in 2017), and has held three fellowships at the Institute for Commonwealth Studies at the University of London (2003-5), Clare Hall at Cambridge University (2003), and the Institute of Education at the University of London (2014). In the course of eighteen years of academic work he has published over fifty scholarly publications, all peer-reviewed and accredited. He has edited three collections of academic essays in three international language journals, published in five scholarly books, edited four books on education, language, and literature. His previous book on literary-cultural studies Culture Capital and Representation (with Palgrave, 2010) was received with critical acclaim. In 2015 the book, Education in a new South Africa: crisis and change was published by CUP. He has been a National Research Foundation (South Africa) rated academic (C2 – established with international profile) for over 8 years. Focusing on language learning and literacy, rural education, and post-colonial literature he has also featured widely in the popular press for perspectives on multilingualism and education. In 2011 he was appointed as Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Education Sciences on the Potchefstroom Campus of NWU, and led the restructuring of the Faculty in 2013, and from 2016-2017 led the Education Joint Executive Task Team (Edu-JET) as Coordinating Dean responsible for the planning and transition towards an integrated single-Faculty structure for the three campuses of the NWU, before being appointed as DVC (Teaching and Learning) in mid 2017. Robert John Balfour is an experienced manager with 15 years of academic and administrative leadership in public and private higher education. Frequently invited as keynote speaker on language and education in South Africa, he has also served as peer reviewer to education institutions such as UKZN, Wits, NWU and UFS for the CHE. Besides being an applied linguist, postcolonial literary critic and educationist, Balfour is an exhibited painter, exhibiting for the first time in a group exhibition in Cambridge in 2003, and then at ArtSpace Gallery in Durban in 2007 and 2015 respectively. Occasionally, Balfour has also published poetry and short fiction in literary journals in the USA, Australia, and South Africa. He believes creative and scholarly work to be complementary.
Full CV: Prof Robert John Balfour
Prof Jeffrey Mphahlele
Prof Jeffrey Mphahlele, PhD, is the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation at the North-West University (NWU). He is an elected member of Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf). His research publications cover epidemiology, control of infectious diseases through vaccination and strengthening immunisation services and policies. Prior joining the NWU, he was the Vice President for Research at the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) (Oct 2014 to Jun 2021). He was a full-time academic at Medunsa / University of Limpopo Medunsa Campus (now Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University) in various capacities: Professor and Academic Chair of the Department of Virology and National Health Laboratory Service (2005 to Sep 2014) and Co-Director of the SAMRC/Diarrhoeal Pathogens Research Unit, which is a WHO Rotavirus Regional Reference Laboratory for Africa (2010 to March 2018). He trained, supervised, and mentored several Post-Doctoral, Doctoral and Master students as contribution towards developing the next generation of researchers. He currently serves as the Chairperson of National Science and Technology Forum (NSTF) and Vice-Chairperson of the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) Board, member of WHO Scientific Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) Polio Working Group, and South African NITAG (National Advisory Group on Immunisation – NAGI). He is the former member of Ministerial Advisory Committee on Covid-19 vaccines and the Committee for Medical Science of Medical and Dental Professions Board of the Health Professions Council of South Africa. He previously served on various governance bodies nationally and internationally including the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) Association Board, Global Research Collaboration for Infectious Disease Preparedness (GloPID-R) Board, Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) Board and South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) Board.
Justice Bess Nkabinde
Judge President RD Hendricks