In 2020 I was elected to SAYAS. At the first induction meeting I heard about the blog, and was so keen to get involved. As it turns out, the SAYAS ExCo were hoping they’d find someone “so keen to get involved” and before I knew it I became the incoming blog editor, responsible for my first cohort of SAYAS bloggers in 2021. My role was to continue running the blog as smoothly as the previous editors had done, and I was very fortunate to have an excellent 6-month handover from the previous editor Prof Roula Inglesi-Lotz. I was also encouraged to bring in my own ideas and innovations.

And so… the postgraduate SAYAS blogger #dayinthelife vlogs were born.

The background to this was covered in one of my first editorials – Down the rabbit hole… and into the world of ‘Study Tubers’. As you’ll read, in February 2021 I made a promise: “My own ‘day in the life’? Watch this space”. Those reading the blog all this time have had to “watch this space” for much longer than I’d initially thought when I wrote that. As it turns out, filming a day in your life is actually a lot more difficult than these prolific YouTubers or indeed our own SAYAS bloggers would make it seem.

Actually filming yourself isn’t objectively difficult. You unlock your phone, swipe across to your camera and click record. You ramble at your phone for a bit. You record a video of your cat You set your phone, camera or iPad against a stack of books and start a Timelapse, recording yourself typing away. Easy.

What is less easy is getting around to it. Choosing a day that feels sufficiently interesting, but not SO interesting that there isn’t time to film. Choosing a day where you have the self confidence to speak to a camera. Choosing what to wear. Brushing your hair. Finding a day that ticked all of those boxes took me 2 years.

There were a few failed attempts in those 24 months. I’d start filming and then get so engrossed in what I was doing that I would forget to keep going 2 hours in. Or, I’d start filming, and then something urgent but confidential would come up, and I’d have to start. Or, on a few occasions, I would start filming on a day working from home, and my cat would sit on the phone I was recording on! I thought it would be fun to film a day doing fieldwork, but realised on -10°C morning in eastern Lesotho last June that between holding equipment, logging data, and planning routes on a tight schedule, it just wasn’t practical to film.

So, eventually I set a reminder on my phone for a random date in January and stuck to it. Perhaps a good lesson in motivating ourselves when doing things outside our comfort zone. Create a non-negotiable.

As expected, the filming wasn’t that difficult. Thanks to modern technology, you can do it all with the equipment that you have. Film on your phone. Edit on the pre-installed software on your computer. But oh was the editing the challenge. This is where it becomes both technically difficult and time consuming.

Step 1: download all of the video clips to the computer. Well, this took a few attempts. Big files. Loadshedding. Slow(ish) internet.

Step 2: Import them, organise them. Quite easy, when you have the hang of it.

Step 3: Editing. This took ages, but was fun. A creative project. Speeding up some sections, finding Creative Commons licensed music to play in the background. Clipping the music track. Doing this, you do have to become very ok with what you chose to wear that day, the sound of your voice, and any other insecurities you have. If you squirm, like I do, every time you listen back on one of your own voice notes, this will definitely be an uncomfortable few days!

Step 4: Export. This should be easy, right? No. Exporting to your computer is a very slow process as you’ve created a very big file. Then trying to upload it to Dropbox to send to our SAYAS YouTuber and current co-chair Prof Dustin van der Haar to process. Those were another two days spent practising skills in patience. But, here is the outcome:

So, what have I learnt? Definitely that I wouldn’t make it in a career as a YouTuber. I don’t have the self-confidence or the patience. I’ve learnt that as productive as I usually am, there are places where procrastination sneaks in. This was one of them. I’ve also re-learnt how important it is to make science and scientific careers accessible. To pull away the veil and mystique that hides our day to day lives. As difficult as it was, I so strongly encourage my fellow scientists to film their own day in the life. To show that we really are all human! I hope you enjoy this insight into a Day in my Life!

By Caradee Y Wright

…well, not quite, but in October 2011, when the young academy was launched with its first 20 members, plenty of decisions still had to be made. 

This despite the fact that the hard work had begun months before in 2010. Professor Bernard Slippers wrote a letter, dated 25 May 2010, to the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) saying, 

“an exciting global movement is gaining momentum to establish forums for the engagement and promotion of young scientists in the form of young scientist academies” and “I believe South African science and society can also benefit greatly from the establishment of a national Young Academy of Sciences….”

With support from the Inter-Academy Panel, the Global Young Academy (GYA) had just been launched as an umbrella body to young academies such as the oldest at the time, the Junge Akademie in Germany. The GYA was supporting the development of national academies and their support included a type of blueprint for how to go about it.

ASSAf agreed and convened a small founding committee of academics / researchers from different institutions, including ASSAf staff member at the time, Dorothy Ngila, to plan the establishment of a Young Academy of Sciences in South Africa. I was fortunate to sit on this planning committee and then go on to be nominated as a member of SAYAS. I then served two terms as Co-Chair from 2011 to 2013 and assisted SAYAS with the application to the Oppenheimer Foundation for funding support.

Beside trying to answer the critical question of what purpose would the Young Academy serve in South Africa, much deliberation was given to its name:

• YASSAf – Young Academy of Science of South Africa – nope, too similar to ASSAf and we wanted our own identity. Plus it did not sound very good!
• YASSA – without the ‘f’. Hmm……..
• SAYA…..
• SAYAS – South African Young Academy of Science!

[Later, once we were established it took 29 iterations of a logo to decide on the one…..]

With amazing support from ASSAf, SAYAS was founded on the 10 October 2011 and twenty excellent young scientists, nominated by their institutions and selected by a special panel including one of the founding committee members, united to be the first cohort of SAYAS members.

The early days’ activities included introducing SAYAS to the then Department of Science and Technology headed by Minister Naledi Pandor and beginning the search for funding to sustain SAYAS’s future.

The nitty-gritty stuff we all gruelled over were edits to the constitution (thank you to the lawyers for their endless support with these amendments) and putting together a strategic plan of exactly what SAYAS should be doing, why to do certain things and how to mobilise members, resources, funding etc. to do so. 

Not even a year into our formation, we won a bid to host the General Assembly of the GYA. In 2012, young scientists from all around the world convened in Johannesburg and together with SAYAS members, showcased their science as well as the activities of the Young Academies. Three highlights for me were having Minister Pandor declare the General Assembly open; the tour of the Cradle of Human Kind; and the Declaration of Sandton written by the GYA and SAYAS members (parts of the writing were done on the bus to and from the fieldtrip). The Declaration was published twenty years after the 1992 Rio Conference on Environment and Development and urged for an even greater push for sustainability.

Personally, my first five years as a member of SAYAS were extraordinary. I worked with some top academics who also happened to be amazing people and became good friends. The Executive Committees of SAYAS that I served on taught me a new meaning for work ethos and we got stuff done! Yet at the same time, we laughed, we shared stories and managed to make it all fun. One of my favourite photos of all times captures this magic element of SAYAS – a photo in honour of SAYAS member and esteemed meat scientist who worked at the University of Fort Hare, Professor Voster Muchenje. 

I helped start a science club in Ga-Rankuwa and watched youngsters leave school and later go on to graduate – they always stayed in contact. I led the healthcare judges panel for the regional and national science expos several times and encouraged learners as young as thirteen to follow their STEM^[i] and social science dreams. In my academic career, through SAYAS I grew a network of scientists, both in South Africa and around the world, on which I still rely today. And I connected with the world of Academies globally – producing a five Academies^[ii] report on Air Pollution and Health which we handed over to the United Nations in New York in June 2019. And most recently as an author of a NASAC^[iii] report on human health climate change in Africa. I believe that if you are willing to work for SAYAS, SAYAS will work for you.

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^[i] Science, Engineering, Technology, Mathematics

^[ii] U.S. National Academy of Science, U.S. National Academy of Medicine, Brazilian Academy of Sciences, German National Academy of Science Leopoldina, Academy of Science of South Africa

^[iii] The Network of African Science Academies