The South African Institute of Physics (SAIP) conference has, for many years, played a central role in bringing together the South African physics community, providing a venue for the dissemination of new findings, the fostering of research collaborations and the inspiration of students.
This year the North-West University (NWU) hosted the 65th annual meeting of the SAIP in an online format for the very first time. Last year, the SAIP conference would have been hosted in the usual manner here at the NWU. All had been prepared, and the local organising committee was looking forward to welcoming delegates to Potchefstroom. However, the global Covid-19 pandemic turned out to be much more serious than was initially thought and the whole world, including the scientific community, was plunged into unprecedented uncertainty. Since then, everyone has adapted to the new normal of online meetings, lecturing and conferences. That is why it was decided to continue with a virtual SAIP conference in 2021.
This has not been an easy task by any measure, as the local organising committee and scientific organising committee, headed by NWU Profs Du Toit Strauss and Eugene Engelbrecht and comprising NWU staff from both the Mahikeng and Potchefstroom campuses, had to deviate from the tried and tested standard SAIP conference format and introduce a virtual environment that was engaging, technically feasible and inclusive, given the serious potential difficulties presented by load-shedding and poor internet connectivity in some regions.
The conference had several highlights, which included two virtual winter schools in the very diverse fields of astrophysics and machine learning, as well as a teacher’s workshop preceding the conference itself. There was also a number of high-quality plenary talks, delivered from around the world by leading experts in their different fields and including a plenary presentation by the 2019 SAIP gold medal recipient. Finally, a special session was dedicated to the memory of the late Prof Harm Moraal, who was a pioneer in space science, an A1-rated scientist here at the NWU, and past president of the SAIP.
Overall, the conference was a great success, with an excellent turnout of 400 physicists from all over South Africa as well as from overseas. The online format worked very well, allowing for stimulating discussions across the board. Our NWU students also made us proud by winning several prizes for their research talks. Bertie Seyfert took home the prize for giving best PhD-student talk on astrophysics, while Jakobus Vorster shared the prize for giving the best MSc-student talk on astrophysics. Furthermore, Marcel van der Westhuizen and Jabus van den Berg both won prizes for their posters in the Astrophysics and Space Science divisions respectively.
