The Minister of Science and Technology, Derek Hanekom, has inaugurated a science centre housed in two old train carriages at the Matjiesfontein Transport Museum.
The science centre is intended to be part of a longer term Science and Technology Train, which Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) and other stakeholders are working towards under the leadership of Dr Stoffel Fourie of the Department of Environmental, Water and Earth Science at TUT.
Speaking at the opening of the centre, Hanekom said science centres brought people and science closer together.
"The opening of the science centre brings us yet another step closer to realising our dream of making science and technology accessible to communities in rural areas that do not have access to the latest trends, or even the basics of science and technology," said Fourie.
He noted that science centres such as the one at Matjiesfontein are part of democratising science and technology. The larger the number of people who understand what science and technology development is about, the more accountable scientists and technology experts will be.
"South Africa desperately needs a stronger science sector, and it can only have one if more people are involved in science. For all our scientific equipment and fancy technologies, fundamentally it is people who are ingenious and who innovate, not machines and not even computers. South Africa needs the ingenuity that only people can provide," he added.
He said the Karoo was becoming an important area for science, with the Matjiesfontein Space Geodesy Observatory, which will contribute much to the understanding of the structure and evolution of the Earth, and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope project. Two weeks earlier, the minister unveiled the first dish antenna of the MeerKAT array, the first phase of the much larger SKA project, which will take over a decade just to build, and will be useful to scientists for years to come.
Hanekom commented that he hopes many young people from the area would step up to replace scientists at the facilities as they retired. He encouraged the young people attending last night's event to use the science centre as a window to the world, learning how the world worked and discovering the joys of science and technology. He said studying science and technology would greatly increase their career opportunities.
According to the Department of Science and Technology, there are a number of other science and research activities taking place in the area, involving Stellenbosch University, Acer Africa, the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory, the Africa Earth Observatory Network, Inkaba yeAfrica (through the National Research Foundation and the Department of Science and Technology) and the Matjiesfontein Education Trust, among others.
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