Dear MMP Stakeholders

I love this time of year, when the trees are budding bright green, and despite the lack of rain, bulbs are literally springing up from the baked hard ground. It shows that a lot goes on even when it’s not visible.

Research is a bit like this – a lot of background work that goes
into discovering new things, new ways, and new processes. A lot has been happening in the MMP Team and within our broader collaboration network over the past six months. As the MMP, our research programme is underway for the financial year, and most of the contents in this newsletter share these stories. At the same
time, we are delighted that the University of Pretoria celebrated
the first graduating students from their SAMERDI Research
Centre, with the two postdoctoral students at the University of
the Witwatersrand finalising their contracts with their respective
SAMERDI Research Centres. Capacity development is a critical
part of the SAMERDI strategy, which the MMP facilitates and
coordinates, including via these university centres.
Our SATCAP programme contributes significantly to capacity
development and empowerment and has successfully run a
youth immersion study tour and women empowerment webinar
recently. The MMP Programme interns also get exposure
to the industry, and for some, their first experiences working
underground. We are proud to be able to support people in their
careers beyond their initial degrees, giving them a head start into
the world of work. We ensure that their development includes not
only technical work, but also mentoring for interpersonal skills,
elements such as report-writing, and public speaking: all skills
that contribute to job satisfaction and advancement.
An exciting opportunity was presented to our one Programme
Manager Mr Jurgens Visser, who visited the “Mining
Transformed” exhibition & BEV conference at the underground
training facility Norcat in Canada, in May 2024. This was a time to
witness leading edge technologies at work in a real underground
setting, while networking, and discovering the modernisation