by
Amanda Wills
Last week I travelled to Windhoek in Namibia to look at possible venues for
Biohydrometallurgy '18 and
Sustainable Minerals '18. I'm pleased to say that I found more than one possibility and will be announcing the dates and venue for these events in the near future.
Whilst there, I met up with
Associate Professor Harmony Musiyarira, Head of the Department of Mining and Process Engineering (DMPE) at the
Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST), and
Professor Jonas Addai-Mensah, formerly a Professor and Associate Director at the WARK Institute, University of South Australia, now working at NUST.
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| Harmony Musiyarira, Amanda Wills & Jonas Addai-Mensah |
After a splendid lunch at the Avani Hotel, Harmony and Jonas drove me to the new NUST campus, which
we reported on back in May, for a guided tour of the new $200MNAM DMPE building which it shares with Civil Engineering. I was much impressed by the state of the art building, and the brand new equipment it is being stocked with, with more planned for 2017-18.
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| Geological Lapping Machine |
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Harmony and Jonas pose next to the
new column flotation cell |
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| The brand new, state-of the-art auditorium |
There are plans to expand the academic and support staff too, and a new undergraduate strand in Chemical Engineering is to be introduced in 2017, incorporated within the Process Engineering of DMPE.
Once we decide on a venue for
MEI Conferences in Namibia, I am looking forward to working together with the DMPE at NUST to bring the world to Namibia - a country with huge potential.
It is splendid to see that there will be one or more MEI conferences in Namibia in 2018/19. It’s a wonderful country with vibrant people and a dynamic young university, the Namibia University of Science and Technology [NUST], which is making a real difference in many aspects of tertiary education. Its investment in Mining and Process Engineering is exceptional with excellent facilities and great people. MEI conference attendees will thoroughly enjoy the experience.
ReplyDeleteJohn Ralston, Australia
Dear Barry
ReplyDeleteThis is a great development for our Sustainable Minerals conference series. It is such a beautiful country, sustainability is such a core aspect and asset of it.
Well done!
This is doubly of importance to me personally as my interest in metallurgy was kindled in Tsumeb more than 50 years ago when I for the first time had beautiful copper minerals in my hand and wondered what this is all about. Furthermore, Outotec has built a copper smelter there.
So for me it is a bit of "closing of the loop" to be able to help organise the next Sustainable Minerals conference there together with you.
Thanks for all your and Amanda's efforts in helping promoting sustainability in minerals and metals processing. And also thanks once again for organising the excellent Sustainable Minerals 16 event in Falmouth in June.
Kind regards
Markus Reuter, Freiberg, Germany.
Thanks John and Markus. Yes we are very excited about the prospect of a new conference venue in such a beautiful and vibrant country.
ReplyDelete