By:Mafumane Tlhapi and Phenyo Mokgothu

The offline mode of Google Maps became more than a navigation tool when Pastor Piet Tlhabanyane, from Bethesda Kingdom Ministries (BKM), an NWU alumnus and a Council member, used it to explain the risks of outdated knowledge in church leadership.

“Without regular updates, even a tool as reliable as Google Maps leads you the wrong way. It’s the same with scripture. If we stop learning, we start misguiding,” said Pastor Tlhabanyane.

As the African continent marks Africa Month Africa Day on 25 May, a remarkable story of cultural resilience and leadership is unfolding in the North West Province.

Khumo Feni, a graduate from the first cohort of the Bachelor of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (B.IKS) programme at the North-West University (NWU), is taking centre stage in the documentation and preservation of Batswana indigenous knowledge systems (IKS).

On 19 May 2025, the North-West University’s (NWU’s) Vanderbijlpark Campus hosted a distinguished public lecture on European Union (EU) - South African relations, featuring Her Excellency Mrs Sandra Kramer, EU ambassador to the Republic of South Africa, and Mr Fulgencio Garrido Ruiz, EU deputy ambassador.

South Africa, Lesotho and Eswatini need to work towards stabilising their political environments and improving governance to create a better climate for business and trade.

“Political stability is crucial for trade,” says Dr Mpho Lenoke, recent PhD graduate and a lecturer in the subject group Economics at the North-West University (NWU). “When governments prioritise stability, they make room for economic growth.”

Rows of parked cars and rooftops on the North-West University’s (NWU’s) Mahikeng Campus now share space with banks of solar panels, part of a campus-wide plan to reshape how electricity is sourced, used and sustained.

The new decentralised solar energy system is being installed across most parking areas and rooftops at the campus. The system includes 1 820 panels, each generating 550 watts of power, with a collective capacity of 1 megawatt peak (1MWp).

The panels are connected through 15 mini-systems that feed directly into the campus’s internal power grid.

On 9 May 2025, the North-West University (NWU) held a lively event celebrating World Intellectual Property Day (WIPD). This year’s theme was “IP and Music: Feel the Beat of IP”. The event showed how intellectual property (IP) helps to protect music and supports the people who create it. The celebration was organised by Technology Transfer and Innovation Support (TTIS) at the NWU with the aim of informing students and staff why IP is important, especially for creative works like music.

When as many as 464 public schools in South Africa have elected to stop offering pure mathematics, the question is no longer about underperformance in mathematics, it is about absence.

While most of these schools still teach mathematics literacy, pure mathematics underpins engineering, science and certain types of problem-solving. When that subject is missing from the school curriculum, the long-term impact on learners and the economy is cause for concern.

Dr Janine Chantson, chief director of Technology Transfer and Innovation Support (TTIS) at the North-West University (NWU), recently represented the Southern African Research & Innovation Management Association (SARIMA) and the Alliance of Technology Transfer Professionals (ATTP) at the prestigious annual conference of the Zhongguancun (ZGC) Forum in Beijing. The visit formed part of a knowledge exchange mission by ATTP, hosted by the Technology Transfer Professionals Association of China National Capital Region.

In a powerful affirmation of compassion as a catalyst for social change, the Optentia research unit at the North-West University (NWU) and the Quality in Nursing and Midwifery (NuMIQ) research focus area co-hosted the hybrid launch of the groundbreaking book, Relational Caring: A Soft Voice in Transforming Society.

The event brought together scholars, practitioners and community leaders from across the globe to reflect on the necessity for empathy and ethical care in transforming communities and institutions.

In an ambitious effort to reimagine how entrepreneurship education is delivered in resource-constrained environments, the bhive Enterprise Development Centre (bhive EDC) at the North-West University (NWU), in partnership with Leuphana University in Germany and the Kitso Information Development Centre, has embarked on a groundbreaking pilot project to test the effectiveness of podcast-based learning.

The project, launched in February 2025, is being conducted in the township of Sharpeville and targets a cohort of 112 unemployed adults.